The Famous Tay Whale Dundee city centre. Paul Godfrey described McGonagall on the strength of the "Tay Whale" and other verse as "the worst poet in the English language". Hugh MacDiarmid wrote of the "Tay Whale" that "what this [the verses about John Wood and the Tay Whale] amounts to, of course, is simply what quite uneducated and stupid people—the two adjectives by no means necessarily go together, for many uneducated people have great vitality and a raciness of utterance altogether lacking here—would produce if asked to recount something they had read in a newspaper." MacDiarmid continued that "in their retailings of, or comments
Tay Rail Bridge likely to be encountered during the entirety of its service life. According to the reports submitted, the results from this testing were satisfying, clearing the way for operational use. On 11 June 1887, the first passenger-carrying trains passed along the second Tay Bridge. On 20 June 1887, which also happened to be the fiftieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession, the bridge was opened for use by general traffic. The second Tay Bridge has remained in use to the present day. To protect the structure from sustaining damage, the double-heading of locomotives is prohibited on all trains that traverse the bridge;