Newport-on-Tay Telford built a new harbour in the 1820s, and the town expanded and grew into a commuter suburb of Dundee as the prosperous jute manufacturers, industrialists and the middle and upper working class of Dundee established fashionable residences in Newport. The local war memorial dates from 1920 and was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer. Newport-on-Tay formerly had two railway stations – the East and West stations on what was the Newport Railway. Both stations (and the Tayport-Dundee branch line) closed in 1969, having lost much of their business following the opening of the Tay Road Bridge in 1966. In fact,
River Tay over. The entire train fell into the firth, with the loss of 75 passengers and train crew. The event was commemorated in a poem, The Tay Bridge Disaster (1880), written by William McGonagall, a notoriously unskilled Scottish poet. The critical response to his article was enhanced as he had previously written two poems celebrating the strength and certain immortality of the Tay Bridge. A second much more well received poem was published in the same year by the German writer Theodor Fontane. A. J. Cronin's first novel, "Hatter's Castle" (1931), includes a scene involving the Tay Bridge Disaster, and the