Over the Tay

We drove to Perth today - about an hour away - to get Chad's new school uniform (he's changed schools and starts the new one abruptly on Monday and is VERY nervous), and the winter light was beautiful, so I took some photographs from the car, while scooting along.... and yes, I wasn't driving.

This is the railway bridge that crosses the Tay, the replacement bridge for the one that collapsed in 1879 in a violent storm. Unfortunately a train was crossing at the time, and 75 people were killed, though William McGonagall, in his celebrated poem, thought that 90 perished.

Special bonus photo: Dundee from the other side of the road bridge

PS
I had a look and found this interesting snippet on the Dundee Council page -

Speculation is still rife concerning the cause of the disaster. The principal theories variously suggest:
a vertical waveform, progressively amplified by the various forces in play that night, effectively shook the bridge apart, somewhat in the manner of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse of the 1930s.

a carriage was derailed by the wind and an axle hit a buttress on one pillar of the high girders, thus sending a shockwave vertically down a supporting pillar of the bridge.

the force of the wind on the bridge set up a domino effect whereby, one after the other, the upper courses of masonry on the bridge piers became detached from the lower courses, thus irretrievably tilting the bridge downwind.