Tay Bridge disaster warned of their unreliability, and declined to estimate conditions at Dundee from readings taken elsewhere. One modern interpretation of available information suggests winds were gusting to . Usage of the bridge was restricted to one train at a time by a signalling block system using a baton as a token. At 7:13 p.m. a train from the south (consisting of a 4-4-0 locomotive, its tender, five passenger carriages, and a luggage van (brake van) slowed to pick up the baton from the signal cabin at the south end of the bridge, then headed out onto the bridge, picking up speed.
River Tay William McGonagall's poems "The Tay Bridge Disaster" and "Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay" and the German poet Theodor Fontane has mentioned the Tay in his poem "Die Brück' am Tay". Both poems deal will the Tay bridge disaster of 1879 seeing the bridge's construction as a case of human hubris and expressing an uneasiness towards the fast technological development of mankind. It is mentioned in the Steeleye Span song "The Royal Forester". Many Rolls-Royce civil aero-engines are named after British rivers, one of which is the Rolls-Royce Tay. River Tay The River Tay () is the longest river in