Tay Road Bridge in the British Pathe web archive. For four days, many took advantage of the toll-free period to cross the bridge. Viewing platforms were once a feature of the Bridge, however they were removed in the 1990s. In 2002, a Tay FM competition to find a slogan for the bridge was abandoned after the slogan with the most votes - “It’s all downhill to Dundee” (reflecting the bridge’s downward angle) was deemed unsuitable. In September 2017, after a successful campaign by Wave 102 to give the bridge a nickname, the bridge was officially nicknamed “Steve” by Chris Duke and Councillor Stewart
Tay Rail Bridge Bouch had used the technique for viaducts including the Belah Viaduct (1860)) on the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway line over Stainmore, but for the Tay Bridge, even with the largest practicable caissons the pier dimensions were constrained by their size. Bouch’s pier design set six columns in a hexagon maximising the pier width but not the number of diagonal braces directly resisting sideways forces. The engineering details on the Tay Bridge were considerably simpler, lighter, and cheaper than on the earlier viaducts. On these the machined base of each column section docked securely into a machined enlarged section