Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!

 From almost any southwardly vantage point in Dundee one cannot miss the imposing, daunting, heavy presence of the Tay Rail Bridge. With its strong powerful girders and powerfully grounded deck it would seem it was designed to last a millennia infact it would be seem unimaginable for any rail bridge to have any other kind of existence, but, alas this was not always the case with this particular bridge, for it was here on the 28^th December 1879 that occurred the one of the most tragic rail disasters in British history.

The engineer behind the design of the original Tay Bridge was a well respected and accomplished Victorian engineer by the name of Thomas Bouch.

Bouch worked for the North British Railway Company and had designed parts of Edinburgh station and had been appointed as the engineer on the Forth Rail Bridge.

On the evening of the 28^th December the evening train running between Edinburgh and Aberdeen was crossing the bridge which was under a sustained torrent of wind and rain the bridge suffered a structural failure sending the train and six carriages plunging into the icy water of the Tay Estuary killing all 75 on board.

Following the disaster an enquiry pointed at negligence of the part of Bouch leading to the disaster. It was found that Bouch had taken little account of wind load while designing the structure of the bridge. After the disaster Bouch was sacked from his job on the forth bridge and an alternative, radically altered deign was adapted. Bouch died shortly after the disaster his reputation and career irreversibly destroyed by the disaster.

The bridge was replaced straight after with an adapted designed allowing for a dual track to run the span. William Henry Barlow built the new bridge, Barlow had sat on the investigation council following the disaster.

Dundee Bard William Topaz Mc Gonnagal immortalized the disaster in his poem named for the disaster, the poem concludes;

"Oh! Ill-fated bridge of the silv'ry Tay

I now must conclude my lay

By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay

That your central girders would not have given way

At least many sensible men do say

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses

At least many sensible men confesses

For the stronger we our houses build

The less chance we have of being killed"