Tay Road Bridge in the British Pathe web archive. For four days, many took advantage of the toll-free period to cross the bridge. Viewing platforms were once a feature of the Bridge, however they were removed in the 1990s. In 2002, a Tay FM competition to find a slogan for the bridge was abandoned after the slogan with the most votes - “It’s all downhill to Dundee” (reflecting the bridge’s downward angle) was deemed unsuitable. In September 2017, after a successful campaign by Wave 102 to give the bridge a nickname, the bridge was officially nicknamed “Steve” by Chris Duke and Councillor Stewart
Tay Bridge disaster were now constructed by sinking brick-lined wrought-iron caissons onto the riverbed, and filling these with concrete. To reduce the weight these had to support, Bouch used open-lattice iron skeleton piers: each pier had multiple cast-iron columns taking the weight of the bridging girders. Wrought iron horizontal braces and diagonal tiebars linked the columns in each pier to provide rigidity and stability. The basic concept was well known, but for the Tay Bridge, the pier dimensions were constrained by the caisson. For the higher portion of the bridge, there were 13 girder spans. In order to accommodate thermal expansion, at only