River Tay 1942 filmed version of the book recreates the bridge's catastrophic collapse. The rail bridge was rebuilt, with the replacement bridge opening on 11 June 1887. A passenger and vehicle ferry service operated across the River Tay between Craig Pier, Dundee and Newport-on-Tay in Fife. In Dundee, the ferries were known as "the Fifies". The service was discontinued on the opening of the Tay Road Bridge on 18 August 1966. The last vessels to operate the service were PS "B. L. Nairn" and two more modern ferries equipped with Voith Schneider Propellers, MVs "Abercraig" and "Scotscraig". The Tay is mentioned in
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