The guard of the Aberdeen train said that he had looked out of the window of the rear coach at Longforgan as the train picked up speed. He saw the starting signal giving "a poor off" (in other words, somewhere between the "on" and "off" positions) but assumed that it had already been put back to Danger after the locomotive had passed it and perhaps had not quite returned to the horizontal position. It is not clear if the guard could have seen the starting signal exactly as the driver would have seen it. The subsequent public inquiry found that the guard was not to blame.