The Tay Bridge

With a span of 2.75 miles, the Tay Bridge carries the railway line from Dundee to Wormit across the River Tay, the longest river in Scotland: it is seen here at the point at which it discharges into the North Sea. The original construction, started in 1871, took six years to complete with a six hundred strong workforce. On completion it drew visitors from across the world including the Emperor of Brazil and Ulysses S. Grant, ex US president. Scottish poet William McGonagall was moved to write ‘The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay’ which he claims was the only poem which made him universally famous. The success of this feat of engineering was,sadly, short lived, the central spans of the bridge collapsing in a storm on 29th December 1879 only 18 months after its official opening resulting in considerable loss of life. This, the replacement structure sits parallel to the original and was opened in 1887 after extensive testing for safety.

Seen here from the V&A in Dundee, the bridge retains some of the delicacy of the original construction seeming to almost skim the water which was the colour of slate, reflecting the threatening clouds above. On the far side of the river, the hills of Fife can be just be seen through the haze.

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