The Tay Bridge Disaster The Tay Bridge Disaster "The Tay Bridge Disaster" is a poem written in 1880 by the Scottish poet William McGonagall, who has been widely recognised as the worst poet in history. The poem recounts the events of the evening of December 28, 1879, when, during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge at Dundee collapsed as a train was passing over it with the loss of all on board (now thought to be 75 people and not 90 as stated in the poem). The foundations of the bridge were not removed and are alongside the newer bridge. The poem is
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