---
title: "Tay Bridge Disaster"
year: 1879
country: "United Kingdom"
canonical: "https://recap.at/1879/tay-bridge-disaster"
slug: "tay-bridge-disaster"
recapType: "global_event"
startDate: "1879-12-28"
---

# Tay Bridge Disaster

> Structural collapse of Scotland's newly completed railway bridge, killing 75 and exposing deficiencies in Victorian engineering standards.

## Summary

The Tay Bridge disaster occurred during a violent European windstorm on Sunday 28 December 1879, when the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed as a North British Railway (NBR) passenger train on the Edinburgh to Aberdeen Line travelling from Burntisland to Dundee passed over it, killing all aboard. The bridge, designed by Sir Thomas Bouch, used lattice girders supported by iron piers, with cast iron columns and wrought iron cross-bracing. The piers were narrower and their cross-bracing was less extensive and robust than on previous similar designs by Bouch.

## Sources

- [Tay Bridge disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster) - Wikipedia

---
Canonical: https://recap.at/1879/tay-bridge-disaster