River Tay naturally. To aid this process and improve the health and resilience of the population a further 28 beavers will be released in Knapdale between 2017 and 2020, however there are no plans at present to release further beavers into the Tay. In the 19th century the Tay Rail Bridge was built across the firth at Dundee as part of the East Coast Main Line, which linked Aberdeen in the north with Edinburgh and London to the south. The bridge, designed by Sir Thomas Bouch, officially opened in May 1878. On 28 December 1879 the bridge collapsed as a train passed
Tay Rail Bridge opened nineteen months earlier and having been passed as safe by the Board of Trade, has a long term impact on wider society. According to some commenters, it is still regarded as having been the most notorious bridge disaster to have ever occurred in the British Isles. Within 10 days of the disaster, German poet Theodor Fontane wrote his famous poem . The disaster was commemorated in "The Tay Bridge Disaster", one of the best-known verse efforts of William McGonagall. In the present day, the stumps of the original bridge piers are still visible above the surface of the Tay