The first Tay Bridge carried the railway across the Firth of Tay between Wormit in Fife and Dundee. On the stormy evening of Sunday, December 28, 1879, the central section of the bridge fell into the river with a passenger train on it. Everyone aboard was killed. It remains one of the most studied engineering failures in British history, and the stumps of its piers can still be seen beside the replacement bridge. A “ghost train” legend is attached to the anniversary. The disaster is thoroughly documented. The ghost train is not.
The first Tay Bridge
Work on the original bridge began in 1871. According to Wikipedia, its designer, Sir Thomas Bouch, used lattice girders carried on iron piers with cast-iron columns and wrought-iron cross-bracing. The bedrock lay deeper than the trial borings showed, so Bouch redesigned the span with fewer piers and longer girders and open-lattice iron piers to cut weight. The central “high girders” ran as through trusses so that sailing ships could pass beneath.
Construction was slowed when two of the high girders fell while being lifted into place in February 1877. The first engine crossed some months later, a Board of Trade inspection took place in February 1878, and the bridge opened for passenger services on June 1, 1878, with a 25 mph speed limit. Another history site gives 1877, which fits the first crossing rather than public service. Bouch was knighted in June 1879, soon after Queen Victoria used the bridge.
The night of December 28, 1879
Wikipedia says a storm of force 10 to 12 on the Beaufort scale was blowing almost at right angles to the bridge. A passenger train from Burntisland to Dundee slowed to take the baton from the south signal cabin, then moved onto the bridge at about 7:13 p.m., according to the inquiry report. A man in the cabin watched it and saw sparks flying from the wheels, then a sudden flash and total darkness. The signalman could not reach the cabin at the north end, because the line was dead.
When the train failed to appear, the truth became clear. The train, the high girders and much of the ironwork of the piers were in the river. Scotland’s People, the government records service, reports that there were no survivors and that 46 bodies were recovered out of 59 known victims. Because of season-ticket holders and railway staff, the inquiry believed 74 or 75 people had been aboard. Wikipedia says the higher figure may come from double-counting in an early newspaper, so sources differ on the toll. Most of the dead came from Fife and Tayside and were going home to Dundee.
What the inquiry found
A court of inquiry was set up immediately. It produced a majority report and a separate, sharper minority report. Wikipedia summarises the common ground: neither the foundations nor the girders were at fault, but the cross-bracing and its fastenings were too weak to resist heavy gales, the casting and fitting of the iron were inferior, supervision of the foundry and of the bridge after completion was inadequate, and the speed limit had not been enforced. The majority concluded that the bridge fell because its bracing and fastenings could not withstand the gale and that earlier gales had already strained it.
The minority report went further in naming blame, and Wikipedia says the other two members declined to join in allocating it. Bouch died on October 30, 1880, less than a year after the collapse, his reputation ruined. A Board of Trade commission later recommended that railway structures be designed for wind loadings of up to 56 pounds per square foot, and the second Tay Bridge, 59 feet upstream, opened on July 13, 1887, where it still carries trains.
After the disaster
Wikipedia records a small, well-sourced coda. The locomotive was dropped during recovery but was repaired and stayed in service until 1919. It was nicknamed “The Diver”, and many superstitious drivers were reluctant to take it over the new bridge. A column recovered from the bridge is displayed at the Dundee Museum of Transport.
Granite memorial panels bearing the names of the 59 known victims were unveiled on both sides of the Tay on December 28, 2013, the 134th anniversary, by the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust. One memorial is at Wormit and one in Dundee. A newspaper feature places the memorial near Newport-on-Tay, so the exact sites differ by source.
The ghost train legend
The ghost story is a single, repeated claim. A 2023 Daily Record travel feature says that “some say” a manifestation of the doomed train can sometimes be seen, appearing every year on December 28. According to the legend, the train can be observed passing over the river where the track once ran, and the sound of screams is heard as it disappears. An earlier post on a Celtic-culture website, from 2018, tells almost the same story in almost the same words. Both present it as something said rather than something witnessed. Neither names a witness, a date of a first sighting or a source for the tale.
What the record can and cannot support
The collapse, the death toll range, the inquiry’s findings and the replacement bridge are documented in government records and in the inquiry report itself. The ghost train is an anniversary legend with no named source. A respectful account keeps the dead at the center. They were ordinary travellers, including a schoolmaster and his young daughter whom the national records service traces, and the memorials exist so that their names are remembered.
Visiting and remembering
The surviving structure is the second bridge, which is still a working railway line. The stumps of the first bridge’s piers can still be seen above the water beside it, according to the feature and the history site. The memorials at Wormit and in Dundee are the places to pay respects, and Wikipedia notes a remembrance walk for the 140th anniversary in 2019. No opening hours, access rules or events were found in the sources reviewed, so check locally before travelling, especially around December 28.
Frequently asked questions
When did the Tay Bridge collapse?
On the evening of Sunday, December 28, 1879, at about 7:15 p.m. during a violent gale.
How many people died?
There were no survivors. Records name 59 known victims and 46 recovered bodies, and the inquiry believed 74 or 75 people were on the train. Sources differ on the total.
Is the Tay Bridge ghost train real?
Nothing documented shows it. It is a legend repeated by a newspaper feature and a website, with no named witness or dated sighting.
Can you still see the old bridge?
The stumps of the old piers still rise above the water beside the second bridge, which opened in 1887 and is still in use.
More haunted bridges: For another European bridge with a long history and legends, see the Charles Bridge in Prague. Further afield, the Richmond Bridge in Tasmania is another old structure with a ghost tradition.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Tay Bridge disaster: design, construction, the night itself, the court of inquiry, aftermath and the locomotive.
- Scotland’s People: The Tay Bridge Disaster: the collapse, the death toll and the inquiry’s finding.
- The Railways Archive: Court of Inquiry report: the 1880 report’s account of the passengers and the train crossing.
- Tay Bridge disaster memorial page: the 2013 memorials to the 59 known victims.
- Daily Record: the Scottish bridge haunted by a ghost train: the ghost train legend (May 15, 2023).
- Transceltic: Ghost train that crosses the Firth of Tay: an earlier telling of the legend (October 2, 2018).
Top image: Original Tay Bridge before the 1879 collapse, seen from the north (c. 1878), photographer not identified on Commons, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.