Newport-on-Tay trains had ceased to run beyond Newport-on-Tay East station to Tayport on 22 May 1966 so that the railway line could be breached to build the bridge's southern approach road. The Dundee – Newport ferry also closed promptly later in 1966 on the opening of the Tay Road Bridge. However, the ferry terminal buildings and slipways still survive at the foot of Boat Hill as a boat repair yard. An excavation carried out by Headland Archaeology in the farm of North Straiton near Newport-on-Tay uncovered part of a Bronze Age cremation cemetery and a line of postholes. Five human cremations
Tay Bridge disaster bar and a cover plate. Evidence was then given of flange marks on tie bars in the fifth girder (north of the two rearmost carriages), the 'collision with girders' theory being duly modified to everything behind the tender having derailed. However, (it was countered) the girders would have been damaged by their fall regardless of its cause. They had had to be broken up with dynamite before they could be recovered from the bed of the Tay (but only after an unsuccessful attempt to lift the crucial girder in one piece which had broken many girder ties). The tender coupling