Fife and Scotland - the offbeat perspective

In the aftermath of the US Civil War, the architect behind the defeat of the Confederate States was elected President of the United States and he visted Fife in 1876, to see how the construction of a new Tay Bridge, linking North Fife with Dundee, was proceeding. Ulysses S. Grant described it as a 'big bridge for a little city' but was sufficiently impressed to prompt American engineers to replicate similar engineering marvels in the United States. Upon completion, the Tay Bridge was one of the longest in the World. Queen Victoria crossed the bridge during the summer of 1879 on her journey to Balmoral and Sir Thomas Bouch, designer of the bridge, was congratulated on this mammoth work by competitors, engineers and politicians.

Buoyed by this success, Sir Thomas Bouch, began work on an even more ambitious plan to build a bridge linking South Fife with Edinburgh but it was never to come to fruition under his leadership.

On a particularly stormy night on the 28th December 1879, the central span of the Tay Bridge collapsed while a train was crossing and both engines and rail carriages plunged into the icy waters and claimed nearly eighty lives. Thomas Bouch died in disgrace and was never allowed to finalise plans for the Forth Bridge. Even today, some of the old foundation stones for this first Tay Bridge can be seen from the Riverside Drive in Dundee.

The alleged worst poet in the World, William Topaz McGonagall, an Irish resident of the city recorded the Tay Bridge Disaster thus:

"Beautiful railway bridge of the silv'ry Tay
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last sabbath day of 1879
Which shall be remembered for a very long time."

The Tay Road Bridge was designed by William Fairhurst and constructed by Duncan Logan Construction Limited. The bridge comprises 140,000 tons of concert and 8,150 tons of steel. It has forty-two spans with a shipping navigation channel closer to the Fife side. The bridge also has a barely noticeable gradient in which to slopes downwards towards Dundee. Construction began in March 1963 and was opened by HRH the Queen Mother on August 18th, 1966. It was built with a view to replacing four car ferries and all four ferries ceased operating on the day the bridge was opened. All four ferries were sold to Nigeria and where they ended their days.

Originally, it was constructed as a toll bridge with viewing platforms mounted above the main carriageway but this latter feature was removed in the 1990s on account of people selecting these to perform acts of suicide. Tolls for usage of the bridge were scrapped just a few years ago under directives of the Scottish Parliament headed by the Scottish Nationalist Party. Today, the Tay Bridges remain in regular service unless threatened by extremely severe and adverse weather.

As stated elsewhere on this web site, there is no desire to repeat information already prominently displayed elsewhere on the Internet and this is particularly true of Scottish cities and where a plethora of data already exists. The exceptions are where something of keen interest exist and is of unique value to readers of this web site. In the case of Dundee, much more information can be found on the Dundee.Com website.

Credits:
Picture Collage by PlutosAcademy. Text by Alandon.