Few will forget the day of drama in Largs Main Street twenty years ago this week.

Many would have been tucking into their breakfast as an early morning train crashed through the buffers at Largs train station, demolishing shops before it came to a shuddering halt next to the taxi rank.

Miraculously, given the impact of the crash, demolishing two shops and destroying a large part of the old station, nobody was seriously injured.

Had the crash taken place just an hour later, the damage would have been far greater.

Dramatic images were broadcast on tv bulletins of the train, crumpled like a toy, with debris strewn across the Main Street.

People could be seen milling around the scene in disbelief at the extraordinary sight.

The 6.15am train from Glasgow Central had already shown signs of a brake problem before it blazed through the buffers at 7.15am on Tuesday July 11 1995.

Only five people were injured, including driver David Robertson, and a crane had to lift the front section of the train away.

The train driver was praised for his quick thinking, as he realised the train was not going to stop, and ran through the carriages warning everybody to move away from the front of the train.

Passenger Fay Wallace described how the train brakes shuddered and hissed as some of the stops before Largs.

She said: “The ticket driver came rushing in, his face looked white and he was shouting something. It just happened right there and then. Nobody had time to panic, it was just silent. I could feel the train hit the buffers and I saw bricks and wood and glass and everything was falling around us.” The runaway train travelled some 125 feet after hitting the buffers.

Train guard Bobby Kerr had a lucky escape by just a couple of feet. He was sitting in the station canteen.

Mr Kerr said: “I was having a cuppa when someone said the train was coming in. It is my job to go out and check it was ok when it was pulling in. But when I opened the door the train came in to me. It missed me by a couple of feet. The wall just collapsed.” Two shopowners lost their properties as a result of the carnage including a wool shop and ‘Extreme Clothing’ as everything was flattened by the train that landed in the corner of the Main Street.

Newsagent Alistair Still helped the walking wounded to safety. Mr Still said: “I thought a bomb had gone off. It was so frightening when I heard the noise and didn’t know where it was coming from. I moved people away from the shop window because I didn’t know where it was coming from. I moved people away from the shop window because I didn’t know what was happening. I was serving customers at the time when I felt the vibration. I ran out and saw the shop totally destroyed. I went to the side entrance and some of us tried to prise the doors open, but it was really difficult.

“People came from the first to the second carriage and we brought them out. When they were coming out, a couple of women said to me the train was going too fast. They were all in shock and upset. Butcher Jim Cooper had been working in the front window of Miller and Clark when he saw the building collapse, ‘like a deck of cards’.

He said: “I heard a crash which made me jump out of my skin. I looked up and the place was demolished, it was completely collapsed. The first bang I heard must have been the train hitting the building at the other side."

“I rushed out to see if there was anything I could do but there was so much dust. Then when the cloud of dust cleared, we could see the train jutting out and realised what had happened. Within minutes the emergency services were there. Some boys climbed up the rubble and could see into the drivers’ cab but it was completely demolished.” Rab MacLeod said: “I just saw the whole front of the shop collapse. The roof went up in the air then it came down and there was smoke, At first I ran across to see if anybody needed help. I saw an off-duty fireman Ian Allan, and Stuart Reid who was on the train going to leave Largs on the other platform. We forced the door open and got four or five passengers off the train who were in the second carriage. They were in shock. One woman said she knew the train was not going to stop. We had to help them down. The train was on the platform on its wheels but some of the big wheels had come off.” “A British Rail man came up and put his arm around a woman. People were standing about in shock. A couple of women were crying, but there were no hysterics.” Fire Brigade crews had to tunnel their way into the rubble using specialised camera equipment to ensure that nobody was trapped in the wreckage.

Euro MP Hugh McMahon and Cunninghame North MP Brian Wilson joined forces to demand a full inquiry by the Railway Inspectorate, both into the specifics of the event and the wider implications and future of the development as a whole.

A new ticket office, which now exists today, was built at the site in 2002.