Best for:
People interested in engineering disasters.

In a nutshell:
In the 1870s, the first of its kind bridge was erected across the Tay river firth to Dundee, in Scotland. 18 months after it opened, it collapsed during a severe windstorm, taking a train with 75 passengers and crew down with it.

Worth quoting:
“It was the Victorian age, and life and death had Purpose. There could be no disaster without a moral.”

Why I chose it:
I think I might have a new book goal: when I visit a city, go to the ‘local’ section and find a book written about whatever incident / disaster / historic event is most infamous in that city. Additionally, I had arrived in Dundee on a train running on the rebuilt bridge that runs parallel to the original collapsed bridge.

What it left me feeling:
Informed.

Review:
You know what’s kind of weird? Reading a book about the collapse of a rail bridge, while sitting on a train, running over the bridge that was built in place of that very collapsed bridge.

The Tay River Bridge was built in the 1870s. Before it was build, people coming up from Edinburgh would need to take a ferry across the Firth of Forth, then a train up to Newport, then ANOTHER ferry across to Dundee, and then a train the rest of the way. Civil engineer Thomas Bouch had an idea for a bridge to cross the First of Tay (and later the First of Forth), reducing the time it would take to make the trip up north dramatically.

Prebble manages to take what could be a pretty dry story - the lead-up to the disaster - and make it interesting. The prologue is just a couple of pages of the accident from the perspective of a rail employee who last saw the train before it started crossing the bridge. After that is Act 1, which focuses on how the bridge was built. There is corporate fighting between rail lines, there is government lobbying and back room deals. Then there are issues with the building of the bridge itself, including inaccurate surveying of the sea floor that misrepresented where the bedrock was. There’s unsurprisingly a couple of accidents, resulting in the deaths of 20 workers. Workers who, in 2023 pounds, were making about £5.56/hour ($6.86/hour) doing absolutely terrifying labor.

The entr’acte focuses on the 18 months when the bridge was open; specifically, on how some people stopped riding the train across because they were concerns about how quickly the trains were running. The original inspector said that trains should run at a maximum of 25 mph over the bridge; individuals believed it was being pushed to 40 mph.

The second act is about the disaster itself and the resulting inquest into who was at fault. I spent nearly 15 years in emergency preparedness and response, and disasters that take place in the 1800s are a different level of terrifying because there was just very limited technology. The train went into the Tay around 7:20 at night (it was December, so very dark this far north), and people didn’t really even realize it for many minutes. And there wasn’t a huge mobilization immediately to search for survivors - things took hours to get organized. Only one body was recovered in the first week; 25 of the 75 were never recovered. Identification of those whose remains were found was visual; distraught family members had to come and take a look at someone who had been in the river for more than a week. Leaders in the Scottish church blamed the victims because the rail was running on a Sunday, adding another level of devastation to grieving families.

This book was a very easy read, and would have a higher rating if not for the authors sexism and classism. The women were always described as sort of dim, or faint of heart, or looking to their husbands for guidance. He also described some as ‘dumpy,’ which, 1950s or not, what a random and unnecessarily cruel descriptor. In terms of the classism, the regard he held for the works who built the bridge seemed more about pity than respect.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it. ( )

Detailed account of the planning, construction and fall of the Tay Rail Bridge, a two-mile-long bridge across the river Tay where it runs into the Firth at Dundee, Scotland. The building of the original bridge was regarded at the time as a triumph of British engineering and was even visited and used by Queen Victoria on her way from Balmoral to London. However only nineteen months after opening to rail traffic the high girders part of the span collapsed in a cyclone level storm as a six-car passenger train passed through. All passengers and crew were killed, with some bodies never recovered. An investigation revealed that the effect of wind on the structure had been so underestimated as not really to have been a factor in the design at all. The forge that produced the iron columns and girders was supervised by a moulder rather than a higher ranked man. Bubbles or other defects in the castings were filled in with a mixture of beeswax, rosin and iron borings melted with lamp black. When the bridge was completed, the only regular inspections were done by a bricklayer, with little knowledge of iron construction. There was also evidence that the trains were regularly exceeding the speed limits set by the government inspector. Major blame fell upon the designer and engineer, Sir Thomas Bouch, who quietly lost his mind and died of a cold only four months after the final report. This is an interesting account of a project of great ambition, too great and an affront to God according to some, its execution and its downfall.

And so the train crept out across the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about half-way,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went train and bridge into the Tay.

And the Storm Fiend loudly did bray,
Because twenty-seven lives had been taken away
On the last Sabbath Day of 1879
Which shall be remembered for a very long time.

As soon as the calamity became known,
The word from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town:
"Good heavens! The Tay Bridge has blown down!"

Thank you, William McGonagall. Don't call us... But the Tay Bridge Disaster was a notable engineering failure of its day, with much in common with the sinking of the 'Titanic' 33 years later. In both cases, a major act of engineering hubris met its nemesis from the natural world. Sir Thomas Bouch was one of the pre-eminent engineers of his day, and the Tay Bridge a major engineering achievement, the longest over-water bridge then yet built. It received the Royal seal of approval as it shortened the route for Queen Victoria to reach her Scottish estate at Balmoral. Not, of course, the only reason for its existence, but a major selling feature ensuring its appearance in all the popular prints of the day.

But little more than a year after its opening, the bridge failed during a violent storm, taking a train full of passengers with it. Bouch went from hero to villain overnight, and the accident enquiry uncovered a tale of corners cut in both design and construction. Debate has raged since over whether the scientific advice Bouch was given over wind loadings was accurate, but the impact of this accident has never been lessened. Through popular culture, the use of the accident in a novel by A.J. Cronin, the awful poetry of William McGonagall (and its 20th-century popularisation by Spike Milligan) and a TV documentary based on this book, the disaster has lived on in popular memory.

Prebble's book was an early exercise in popular scientific forensic study, and it has remained one of the classics of the genre. But let us leave the last word to William McGonagall:

The stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed. ( )

Dust jacket has subtitle: 'the story of the Tay Bridge disaster"