Scottish man one of 16 killed in Lisbon funicular crash

A man from Perthshire is one of 16 people to have died following a fatal railway incident in Portugal.

The Elevador da Gloria, a popular tourist attraction in Lisbon, derailed during the busy summer season on Wednesday.

Andrew David Kenneth Young was on board at the time.

The 82-year-old, who was raised in Auchterarder, was one of three UK citizens to die following the crash.

Police and firefighters work on the site of the Gloria funicular railway accident in Lisbon. Getty Images

The former customs officer and “lifelong transport enthusiast” moved to Holyhead in the north of Wales in 1980.

A statement from his family read: “Andrew David Kenneth Young was known to most as Dave.

“He was raised in Auchterarder, Perthshire. He moved to Holyhead in 1980, where he had a long career as a customs officer.

“A lifelong transport enthusiast, in retirement, he enjoyed visiting heritage railways and tramways around the world.

“It is a comfort to his sons, their mother, and his brothers that his final moments were in pursuit of the hobby which gave him so much happiness.”

The victims have been from various countries. In a statement released on Friday by Portugal’s national criminal investigation agency, the nationalities of those killed were confirmed.

Five Portuguese, two South Korean, one Swiss, three British, two Canadians, one Ukrainian, one American and one French person died in the crash.

Authorities also clarified that a German citizen, who was identified yesterday as one of the fatalities, was later determined to have been injured and was alive in hospital.

Lisbon hosted around 8.5m tourists last year, and long lines of people typically form for the streetcar’s short and picturesque trip a few hundred metres up and down a city street.

“This tragedy… goes beyond our borders,” Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said at his official residence, calling it “one of the biggest tragedies of our recent past”. Portugal observed a national day of mourning Thursday.

Investigations are under way to establish how one of the Gloria carriages lost control and crashed into a building at a bend in the road.