the more junior guard should have gone back down the track to protect the train. These precautions had been omitted, to pursue a strategy (dividing the train) which, even had nothing gone wrong, would have had no advantages over awaiting the scheduled train to assist the excursion to Hamilton's Bawn. If Mr. Elliott had therefore only had the prudence to wait where the excursion train stopped near the top of the bank and to send back one of the guards to protect his train, with instructions to ask the driver of the following ordinary train to help the excursion train up the short remaining distance, he would hardly have lost time and would, besides, have avoided the risk inseparable from the delicate operation he unwisely determined to carry out and which should have been resorted to under only most exceptional circumstances and not, as in the present case, where there was so easy a solution of the difficulty. Other criticisms Wrong driver, wrong engine The excursion train (even in the 15-vehicle form in which it set off) should have been able to climb Armagh bank at about . The inspector considered that its failure to do so must have been "due to some want of proper management of the engine" by its insufficiently experienced driver. The locomotive shed foreman at Dundalk was criticised for want of judgment in not sending a more experienced driver and in his choice of engine. The 2-4-0 supplied would have had insufficient margins (even when hauling a 13-vehicle excursion train) to be sure of maintaining a safe speed over the more onerous gradients farther up the line. For a 15-vehicle excursion, assistance should have been given by the engine of the regular train. Failure to provide an assisting engine The report criticised the "over-confidence" of the excursion engine driver as to the capabilities of his engine and regretted that his better judgment must have been overcome by the words of the Armagh station master. The chief clerk came in for further criticism for not having persisted with his instructions for the regular train engine to provide assistance. There was no direct criticism of the station master; either for having increased the size of the train, or for persuading the engine driver to attempt Armagh bank without assistance. The excursion train The organisation of this was criticised on a number of points: Passengers should not have