EMERGENCY services descended in force at Loch Park near Drummuir as part of a large multi-agency exercise.

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A simulated train accident on the Keith-Dufftown railway provided the backdrop for the exercise on Saturday, March 19.

Firefighters from Fochabers, Keith and Dufftown were joined by Coastguard teams from Buckie, Burghead, Portsoy and Macduff along with the Scotland's Charity Air Ambulance. They were joined by volunteer paramedics.

The teams were responding to a simulated accident where a train had hit a tree on the line.

Fake blood and some rather good acting were the order of the day for the 'casualties', who were ably played by Coastguard rescue officers and members of the Gordonstoun School Volunteer Fire Unit. In order to give as accurate a reflection of what rescuers would face in such a scenario, those first on the scene were met with everything from the walking wounded suffering cuts and bruises, spinal injuries, an amputated foot and fatalities.

WATCH the rescue teams in action:

The rescue efforts was not just confined to the railway line itself. Coastguard teams conducted a search of the lochside and the water itself, both for casualties who had wondered down dazed and in shock and 'fatalities' whose bodies had been thrown away from the train by the impact.

The exercise was hailed as allowing the different emergency services to perform a range of different tasks while all working together, with plans to hold another multi-agency exercise focusing on a different scenario likely to be held in the not too distant future.

It is the first exercise of its kind to be held by the emergency teams since October 2019, when the task at hand was practising water rescue skills on the River Spey.

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