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.
Tay Bridge disaster the support of circumstantial evidence – that the bridge might well have failed at the north end first; he explicitly dismissed the claim that the train had hit the girders before the bridge fell. Yolland and Barlow concluded that the bridge had failed at the south end first; and made no explicit finding as to whether the train had hit the girders. They noted instead that apart from Bouch himself, Bouch's witnesses claimed/conceded that the bridge failure was due to a shock loading on lugs heavily stressed by windloading. Their report is therefore consistent with either a view that the