THE TAY RAILWAY-BRIDGE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1017, 5 January 1880, Page 2

THE TAY RAILWAY-BRIDGE.

The railway bridge, the partial destruction of' which was attended by such fearful loss of life, is the colossal work completed in 1877 by the North British Railway Company, giving direct communication between Dundee and the South. This bridge, according to a contemporary, formed n Connection between the town and the-North British railway system in Rife, and crossed the Firth of Tay about a mile and a half to the west of Dundee. The length of the bridge was 3540 yards, and it was therefore the longest bridge in the world. It consisted of 84 spans, their magnitude, commencing at the Fife end, being : three of 60ft, two of 80ft, ten of 12G£t, twelve of 136 ft, thirteen of 230 ft, one of 15Oft, eleven of 120 ft, twenty-five of 60ft, one of 155 ft, and six of 2 6ft. The .first fourteen were founded on rock. At one end the piers were of brick ; the remainder iron cylinders, filled with concrete, sunk into the fiver-bed; and these cylinders supported wrought iron pillars about 15in in diameter, on which the superstructure rested. . The bridge was high enough to allow of the passage under it of ships of heavy burden. It occupied nine:years in building. A single dine of railway traversed it, bub the bridge was so constructed that a second line could have been added. Mr T. Bouch was the engineer. Although the bridge has often been described as the lightest structure of the kind anywhere, there were used in its construction 8200 tons of iron, 87,000 cubic feet of timber,. 15,000 casks of cement, and 10,000,000 bricks. 'Owing to the great success of the Tay it was resolved last year by the four great railway compapies to take steps for. the construction pf a similar bridge over the Forth; and. we believe the work was entrusted to tke same engineer. Further details of this awful disaster are published this evening. It is stated that not a soul on the train was saved. . _For remainder of PeWs see last page.