Talk:Tay Bridge disaster

Navvies
Apparently they were in such a hurry to build the bridge that they were forced to use the only available squad of navvies, who were notorious for skimped workmanship 86.154.93.83 (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Tornado?
This disaster is mentioned in List of European tornadoes and tornado outbreaks, but this article doesn't mention a tornado. What's the truth? Totnesmartin (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I removed it because the official enquiry, relying on the ship's log of the Mars, lying in the estuary, states that the weather was "not...of that exceptional character". The wording at List of European tornadoes and tornado outbreaks—"Waterspout took out central section of Tay Rail Bridge"—can't really be supported.--Old Moonraker (talk) 22:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That was my guess - It's the first mention I'd ever come across. Totnesmartin (talk) 23:11, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Several sources suggest one or several tornadoes or waterspouts may have caused the disaster.

"Two waterspouts weere seen in the vicinity at around the time of accident."

Pål Jensen (talk) 20:51, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It would help if a contemporary source of the sighting could be given, or if the modern source was more explicit about who it believes reported waterspouts. 'Ex-provost' Robertson saw two columns of spray, but his view was that there were no columns of spray, and what he had seen was more general spray from the bridge collapse picked out by shafts of light from the bridge lamps as the bridge turned over.  Are the supposed 2 water spouts reported by another witness not called at the inquiry, or a retrospective reinterpretation of what the ex-provost saw?
 * (Incidentally Burt (a meteorologist) doesn't himself suggest a waterspout/tornado; he notes the windward steelwork to have lifted from the masonry and quotes T Martin (an engineer)as suggesting tornadoish tendencies, or at at least an upward tendency in the wind. There are more straightforward engineering reasons why (even in the absence of upward tendencies in the wind) a bridge thinking about overturning to leeward would lift away at the windward side) Rjccumbria (talk) 18:21, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Unsourced Material Archive
Moving unsourced material that's been tagged long-term from the article to here. Please feel free to source and reincorporate into the article. Doniago (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Declaration of Intent
I was (and indeed still am) intending to put some work on this, following a few basic principles
 * 1) Logical flow of article: should be disaster > inquiry > inquiry evidence > inquiry conclusions (including causes) (leaving > modern forensic engineering reinterpretations to somebody more interested and/or SQEP in such things)
 * 2) Statements (of fact and most definitely of what the enquiry was told): should as far as possible be taken back to entries in 'Minutes of Evidence' (as a (hopefully) non-controversial example; the statement that casualty numbers were determined by a meticulous examination of ticket sales as far away as Kings Cross is referenced to (and is recognisably a misunderstanding of)Rolt, and it would be preferable to reference the evidence given by the people who collected the tickets at St Fort )
 * 3) Inquiry conclusions: modern investigations have their own jargon of "immediate causes", "root causes", "contributory factors", "failed barriers", "observations" which perhaps make things clearer, but even in 1880 it was appreciated that all sorts of things "which can't have helped" come to light in the course of investigation of an accident/incident, and not all of them are causes of what actually happened.  Consequently the fact that the inquiry (or Rothery) comments adversely on something should not be reported as that thing being found to be a cause unless the enquiry (or Rothery) actually say so.

I think that revising the article according to those principles will take a considerable amount of work,; and following my normal method of working a lot of that work would take place before there is any visible revision of the article for others to comment on. I recently inserted a direct quote from the 15 conclusions of the C of I (no 12 - the immediate cause of the bridge collapse), and had this reverted with 10 minutes, apparently on the grounds that this was no 12 of 15 causes given, supplemented by a mention of WP:UNDUE (presumably in the sense that this was giving undue prominence to a minority view, rather than the bit about such reprehensible activity being best countered by supplying more/stronger evidence to the contrary, rather than reversion/deletion). Clearly I do not want to encounter a similar treatment to anything representing some weeks' work. I would therefore appreciate it if anybody who disagrees with the above principles states their case to the contrary now rather than when/if a major revision is posted. If it becomes obvious that agreement is unlikely, then I can at least go off and waste my evenings on writing up the Belah Viaduct (or possibly Station Road Bridge Keswick, something built by Bouch which is still standing) Rjccumbria (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I recall your edit summary included "capture diversity [of] views". Commendable and welcome, I thought. Disappointment followed, with just one point from the fifteen enquiry conclusions quoted. If Rothery gives it as much prominence, then so may we. We shouldn't select just one without such a rationale: that would be WP:NOR and liable to a RV again. Selecting from the enquiry minutes, rather than the enquiry conclusions, may run the same risk.


 * Don't think from this that your attention to the article isn't very welcome and, in future, I for one will hold back from any instant rebuttal, waiting (but for longer than before) for the balance to show through. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Rothery has a 3 paragraph section headed "True Cause of Loss of Bridge" (Paras 101-3); the fact that this concurs with the C of I conclusion 12 as to the immediate cause does not appear to have prevented your immediate revert. I am sorry to have disappointed you and fully understand your explanation that this was a factor in reversion.  Given how you take disappointment I would not want to run the risk of disappointing you again.  I look forward to seeing this page improved to your own liking in the near future. Don't think from this that I hold any particular opinion about anything or anyone.  Regards Rjccumbria (talk) 21:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, you are ahead of me again. As Old Moonraker I can remember the first manifestation of Magrathea (I even have the tapes!) but I can't work out the connection.--Old Moonraker (talk) 07:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Tapes? I've got the double LP (unpleasantly warped when last checked (and the LPs aren't in much better shape)).
 * As I understand your way of thinking I can't actually post anything until I have checked that all versions give roughly the same account of the events, and even then I really should give the rest of the plot so as not to give undue prominence to this episode, but a clue may be found at the start of an audio clip on the BBC HHGTTG  webste, which runs (roughly);
 * Slartibartfast; Do not be alarmed, I mean you no harm
 * Arthur Dent (incredulous/indignant); You fired two missiles at us !
 * Slartibartfast; Oh, that...
 * (clip continues, so of course the possibility of selective quoting cannot be excluded)
 * (The missiles become a whale, and a pot of geraniums, if that jogs your memory; (the whale is the immediate cause of a large crater and a scattering of gobbets of whalemeat on the surface of the planet)) The intended point of the reference being that the automated missile-firing was in this case marginally preceded by a automated message saying that nothing should be read into it Rjccumbria (talk) 19:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Some extra material
You can find some interesting material at Patrick Matthew. Macdonald-ross (talk) 21:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Not quite as interesting as it was, I fear, once edited for 'he was right on all points' POV, but if you go there call in on its talk page for a pearler of a hubristic quote from Groethe's hubristic book on the Tay Bridge and the excellence of Mr Groethe's management of the project (not included in this article for space reasons)Rjccumbria (talk) 20:56, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Intro
Has anyone actually tried to read the intro? It really is bad. Introductions should be: what, where, why and when i.e. a summary of the article. The English is poor and the single paragraph is too long. Needs completely re-written. Doesn't tell me how many people died but it does tell me the wind loading of future bridge design! BTW I have not even tried to read the rest of the article... Bjmullan (talk) 21:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * ... which seems a very strange thing to boast about. If you feel you can improve the lede feel free to do so; but perhaps it might help if you read the rest of the article before you give us the benefit of your views; if as you boast you haven't then presumably you are unable to comment accurately on whether the lede is a summary of the article. If you have read the lede you will know that it does say what, where and when.  As to why, nobody knows quite why, but most people suspect the design features mentioned in the lede had something to do with it.  The number of people who died is not known for certain, and (your exclamation mark notwithstanding) the effect of the diaster on British bridge design is normally considered noteworthy (for reasons the rest of the article explains). RegardsRjccumbria (talk) 23:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I checked the lead, and agree with Bjullan: it was bad. I've revised it.  Note that details about the bridge are not entirely relevant, as this article is about the disaster, not so much about the bridge.  Relevant details about the bridge should be included, IMHO, but not everything.  That's why this is a separate article from that about the original bridge.


 * I'm also beginning to think I screwed up by not splitting the bridge article into two; one article about the original bridge and one about the one currently in use. I may fix that.  - Denimadept (talk) 06:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Baton?
The article twice mentions a baton being picked up by the train before it crosses the bridge, but doesn't explain what this is for. I assume it was some sort of safety thing to ensure there was only one train on the bridge at a time. This should be made explicit, but I'm not going to add it as I'm just guessing here. - dmmaus (talk) 23:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This is common practice on railways in general, not just single-line bridges and certainly not specific to the Tay. Although probably baton-shaped here and called a "staff" (others were smaller, many had large arm-sized rings for easy handling), this is generically called a "tablet". Signalling block system and British absolute block signalling might explain more. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Excellent, thank you! I've added a sentence linking signalling block system and token (railway signalling) to explain the reference to a baton. Much less cryptic now. -dmmaus (talk) 04:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

known dead
This article states that there were 60 known dead, and links to as the reference, which appears to be a death certificate. Also some sources (e.g. and  ) are saying that this is 59. Edgepedia (talk) 19:09, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Rolt gives a figure of 75 passengers, but by stating "passengers", that excludes the train crew.
 * According to Prebble, there were 75 in total - 69 or 70 passengers (57 with tickets to Dundee, 10 or 11 with tickets to stations beyond, and two season ticket holders), three train crew on duty - driver (David Mitchell), fireman (John Marshall) and guard (David MacBeath); also two off-duty guards (David Johnston and George Scott). Prebble also mentions a railway employee (George Ness) who was riding on the engine, but it is not clear whether he is counted among the "69 or 70".
 * Kichenside states "80 people died, including the train crew".
 * "the crew and seventy-five passengers"
 * "Everyone on the train—75 men, women and children". -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:30, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The Board of Trade Report (p. 9) states "74 or 75", being "57 passengers for Dundee, five or six for Broughty Ferry, five for Newport, two season ticket holders, the engine driver, stoker, and guard of the train, and two other guards". The same quantities are given on p. 21, but in figures instead of words. -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:43, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I have just attended to an edit which asserted that there were only 59 fatalities, and did so on the basis of a 2014 article in the Dundee Courier, which reported the assertation of somebody associated with the campaign for a Tay Bridge Memorial that the figure of 75 arose from double counting of Newport and Broughty Ferry passengers in a paragraph 'The Numbers on the Train' in the Dundee Courier and Argus of 30 December 1879. The story is half right: on checking the 30 December 1879 paper reported " The tickets collected at St Fort showed bookings at the different places named as follows:" including for Newport & Broughty Ferry (passengers for which would have retained their ticket, passengers from which are implausible). The total of 75 this gave, however, also included 2 season ticket holders and 6 railway servants, and therefore is not just people who surrendered a ticket.  The Courier then added on another 15 to allow for young children and railway servants not on duty (no futher allowance for passengers travelling beyond Dundee and retaining their ticket) to arrive at an estimated death toll of 'about 90'. So the Courier account of 1879 would seem to have started a sentence talking of "tickets collected" and then totalled "tickets collected + tickets seen + train crew": if so, it's not clever, but it's not double counting (and it gives an answer in line with the similar exercise carried out by the inquiry). Rjccumbria (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would have thought it would take take considerable mis/over-interpretation of the 1879 paragraph to see it as supporting a view that the 59 victims named on the memorial are all the victims there were. Checking on the other sources given as supporting downward revision, I see that they are all reports of the views on this matter of the secretary of the memorial trust, who is reported in the BBC news reference as pointing out that nobody has ever proved there was a 60th victim.  As far as I know, he is correct, but absence of proof is not proof of absence. Rjccumbria (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "Everyone on the train—75 men, women and children". -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:30, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The Board of Trade Report (p. 9) states "74 or 75", being "57 passengers for Dundee, five or six for Broughty Ferry, five for Newport, two season ticket holders, the engine driver, stoker, and guard of the train, and two other guards". The same quantities are given on p. 21, but in figures instead of words. -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:43, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I have just attended to an edit which asserted that there were only 59 fatalities, and did so on the basis of a 2014 article in the Dundee Courier, which reported the assertation of somebody associated with the campaign for a Tay Bridge Memorial that the figure of 75 arose from double counting of Newport and Broughty Ferry passengers in a paragraph 'The Numbers on the Train' in the Dundee Courier and Argus of 30 December 1879. The story is half right: on checking the 30 December 1879 paper reported " The tickets collected at St Fort showed bookings at the different places named as follows:" including for Newport & Broughty Ferry (passengers for which would have retained their ticket, passengers from which are implausible). The total of 75 this gave, however, also included 2 season ticket holders and 6 railway servants, and therefore is not just people who surrendered a ticket.  The Courier then added on another 15 to allow for young children and railway servants not on duty (no futher allowance for passengers travelling beyond Dundee and retaining their ticket) to arrive at an estimated death toll of 'about 90'. So the Courier account of 1879 would seem to have started a sentence talking of "tickets collected" and then totalled "tickets collected + tickets seen + train crew": if so, it's not clever, but it's not double counting (and it gives an answer in line with the similar exercise carried out by the inquiry). Rjccumbria (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would have thought it would take take considerable mis/over-interpretation of the 1879 paragraph to see it as supporting a view that the 59 victims named on the memorial are all the victims there were. Checking on the other sources given as supporting downward revision, I see that they are all reports of the views on this matter of the secretary of the memorial trust, who is reported in the BBC news reference as pointing out that nobody has ever proved there was a 60th victim.  As far as I know, he is correct, but absence of proof is not proof of absence. Rjccumbria (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would have thought it would take take considerable mis/over-interpretation of the 1879 paragraph to see it as supporting a view that the 59 victims named on the memorial are all the victims there were. Checking on the other sources given as supporting downward revision, I see that they are all reports of the views on this matter of the secretary of the memorial trust, who is reported in the BBC news reference as pointing out that nobody has ever proved there was a 60th victim.  As far as I know, he is correct, but absence of proof is not proof of absence. Rjccumbria (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Wind blowing the train over and precipitating the bridge collapse.
I can remember getting into a debate on here about the article by J N C Law (published in the Railway Magazine - pages 160 to 163 - of May 1965) but I can`t find the discussion, has it been filed, if so where ? Anyway, Mr Law suggested that the train had been blown over and it was that which precipitated the collapse of the bridge. During the Talk Page discussion it was stated that winds of high enough velocity (to cause a train of the period to blow over) are exceptionally rare. Does the recent weather change anybodies mind on this ! --JustinSmith (talk) 16:57, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

It`s here !--JustinSmith (talk) 17:03, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Photos of disaster added to WikiCommons
You may be interested to know that National Library of Scotland has recently added images from the investigation in to the Tay Bridge collapse as part of its Wikimedian-in-Residence project with Wikimedia UK. The images have been placed in to the public domain. Please use them as you consider appropriate for this and/or other articles. Cheers! Triptropic (talk) 01:08, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Note on what hurricane means in British English
Since an edit war seems to brewing on this, triggered by an unsigned-in editor with a handy line in snotty edit summaries, the tale is this: Prior to Aug 2015 a witness was allowed to describe the storm as a 'hurricane' with no need for a note on what that meant to him and the Inquiry. In Aug 2015 an editor thought it necessary to link that to tropical cyclone and go on to note that the witness had described it thus although the storm was in fact extra-tropical. If you are not familiar with British usage, that edit presumably could seem a good idea. If you speak it like a native, the edit made about as much sense as someone finding a quote including the phrase 'raining cats and dogs' promptly inserting links to articles on Tiddles and Rover and going on to note that in fact it was only raining rain. The edit was reverted, and to prevent any repetition a note explaining the implications of 'hurricane' in British English was added. (Michael Fish was dragged into it, because a vivid example of the point: having assured a viewer on air that a hurricane (in the strict sense) on the E coast of America was not going to hit the UK he was pilloried when a violent storm in no way related to a tropical cyclone did hit S England) I would wish that the note was unnecessary, but the article has to be aimed at all English-speakers, not just those reasonably up to speed with UK idiom and nuances.

Looking at the article edit history I see that subsequently that note has been deleted on a number of occasions, almost invariably by a numbers only editor and almost invariably with a pointlessly snotty edit summary, with only minor variations in its wording. On every previous occasion it has been reverted; on one occasion because the deletion had been made by a sock of a banned editor. Assuming good faith, the latest deletion is unrelated to those previous episodes; but even assuming good faith it should be noted that the same deletion has been attempted a number of times, and more than one signed-in editor has thought the deletion should be reverted. Rjccumbria (talk) 18:34, 8 May 2017 (UTC)


 * So the point of the note was to stop another editor from adding a link? And you wanted the note to explain English usage to an international audience? There are problems with that on many, many levels. The note does not remotely fulfill that purpose. It is not coherent and it does not explain English usage:


 * in response to a question on the violence of the storm:
 * What question? From whom? Is the note referring to something in the article, or to something about the article's edit history? It is not clear.
 *  as the OED notes
 * Without defining the acronym, and without even linking to the relevant article, how do you expect the reader to whom you are apparently addressing this note to understand what this refers to? And endorsing a source like this violates the fundamental policy of NPOV. The OED notes might be OK; that "as" is a problem.
 * (and Michael Fish can probably confirm)
 * So you want to explain British English to an international audience. Did it not occur to you that international audiences are not typically familiar with British weather forecasters from the late 1980s? Or that your personal speculation about what he could or could not confirm is irrelevant and unencyclopaedic?
 * in UK English a "hurricane" does not have to be a tropical cyclone, merely "any storm in which the wind blows with terrific violence"
 * This is the only potentially useful bit of the note. At least, it would be if this were a usage specific to British English. But, from Merriam Webster I see that it is defined as a tropical cyclone, or something resembling that in its intensity, while Random House gives tropical cyclone as the first definition and "a storm of the most intense severity" as the second. Thus, I do not see any evidence that use of the word to describe a violent non-tropical storm is restricted to British English.


 * in the contemporary Beaufort scale force 12 was "hurricane" regardless of the cause of the high wind


 * In the present day Beaufort scale, this remains the case.


 * So the note was incoherent, inaccurate, inappropriately written, and aimed at an audience who couldn't possibly have understood the cultural reference. If you want to stop people adding a link to hurricane, a hidden HTML comment would work beautifully. But if you want a non-British reader not to be confused by the word, there is no evidence that they would be. The confusion of the editor concerned should not be taken to imply any more widespread misunderstanding.


 * And finally, if you found my edit summary it what I've written here snotty, then rest assured I feel exactly the same about your input. But if you can find a single snotty thing I aimed at you personally rather than the text in the article, do point it out.82.132.238.100 (talk) 22:53, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for sharing your opinions. I do note that you nowhere state them to be your opinions; they are passed off as absolute judgements. I would suggest that if you do not understand something, the correct comment is 'I don't understand this' not 'it's incomprehensible'; if you don't follow the argument, then say so, rather than branding it 'incoherent'. I think that following that principle would give somewhat politer edit summaries etc (and also distinguish your well-intentioned edits from previous drive-by deletions by numbers-only contributors)
 * I would also say that it seems to me that you are, if not missing the point, at least going off at a tangent; my view would be that writing articles so that readers shouldn't be confused is all well and good, but should not stand in the way of writing articles so that readers aren't confused. And on a more detailed point; very little one writes is incapable of improvement, but looking at the note objected to, the chief criticism I would make in retrospect is that it might perhaps be more clearly focussed on what the witness meant by the word (what it might mean to us today is not that relevant). The only bit of the note bearing directly on that is what the contemporary Beaufort scale meant by "hurricane": as I understand your comments you consider it unnecessary to give that information because the same is true in the current Beaufort scale. I cannot say that I follow that argument.Rjccumbria (talk) 20:05, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The text you want to include falsely​ implies that the use of the word "hurricane" in the Beaufort scale has changed. It is not "unnecessary to give that information" - it is wrong to do so. I'm astonished to see that you did not bother to acknowledge or respond to any of my other points. Do you plan to do so? 82.132.236.104 (talk) 02:43, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Your position then (I take it) is that a note intended to clarify what a witness meant by the word 'hurricane' when he used it in 1880 not only need not contain any information on how the word was used in 1880, but must not because to do so would be to 'falsely imply' that the word is used differently today. (It doesn't - the big OED is constructed on historical principles and hence bung-full of historical uses of words, mostly in the same sense as they are used today.) If that is really your position, then (as far as I can see) it is impossible that any note on the point could be acceptable to you and the rest of your points therefore fail to arise. Hence there is no point discussing them until we have settled this point, and it is hard to see why you should be 'astonished' at the implications of your stance. Rjccumbria (talk) 18:53, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems that you have either badly misunderstood or are deliberately misrepresenting my arguments. An article obviously could contain information on how a word was used in the 1880s, if that were relevant. It obviously should not imply that the meaning of the word has changed, if it has not done so. Your note makes exactly that mistake. It also suffers the other problems I described above that you have ignored. Now, if you have a response to each of the objections I raised, please give it. 82.132.239.226 (talk) 21:54, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No 'deliberate misrepresentation' nor (I think) have I 'badly misunderstood'- you have twice baldly asserted that the note should not say what the word meant in 1880, on the second occasion on a more clearly stated basis that to say that would imply that the word meant something different in the 21st century. My note nowhere says that the word meant something different in 1880 from what it means now (my current view would be that it says to much on what the word means now). It would be helpful if you could accept that, and also if you could accept that simply saying what 12 on the Beaufort scale meant in 1880 when that is relevant does not (to the unprejudiced reader) imply anything about what it means now. Because you choose to see an implication that is not there, you are deploying rhetoric and invective that I consider distinctly inappropriate.Rjccumbria (talk) 23:13, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * in the contemporary Beaufort scale force 12 was "hurricane" regardless of the cause of the high wind obviously suggests that that meaning has changed. If you said "Dundee was in Scotland in the 1880s", that would obviously imply that it isn't any more. Your note is as absurd as that. I did not say that the article should not say what the word meant in 1880. I said that it must not imply that the meaning has changed, because it has not changed.
 * You have not explained what purpose your note was meant for. You have not explained how you think it achieves that purpose. You have not addressed the points I raised, though I directly asked you to several times, and you have repeatedly misrepresented my views. I'm not interested in whatever game you're playing, and I am removing the incoherent, inaccurate and irrelevant note once again. Should you come up with any responses to the points I made several days ago, you may of course share them here. 82.132.239.226 (talk) 23:29, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I am afraid my view would be that an argument that relies so heavily on bolding and on spraying around 'obvious' is an argument in some difficulty. I would also tend to the view that characterising the views of another editor as 'absurd' and suggesting that they are playing games are not conducive to reaching consensus; but I'm not entirely sure that was ever your aim.
 * The only relevant evidence on what a word meant in 1880 is documents current in 1880 and any mention of what the meaning is currently (including any statement on the contents of the Beaufort wind scale as currently promulgated) is beside the point. (I would criticise/revise the note on that basis if we ever got to the point where the note was permitted to say in the contemporary Beaufort scale force 12 was "hurricane" regardless of the cause of the high wind without you objecting that it implied the current Beaufort scale says something different (which incidentally I see the current Wikipedia article thinks it does)).  The note nowhere says or implies that the meaning of 'hurricane' has changed since 1880; it serves to reassure the cautious reader and to point out to the incautious one that the 1880 witness was not saying the bridge had been subjected to a 'tropical cyclone'.  Your analogy (which apparently you consider conclusive) is defective, surely: a better analogy would surely be the statement "an 1870 map shows Strasbourg in France"; that implies not that Strasbourg has changed nationality an odd number of times since 1870, but that an old document has been consulted because it gives stronger evidence than any current map of what administrative unit Strasbourg was in in 1870. Rjccumbria (talk) 19:54, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

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"burning-on" definition/explanation lacking
"Burning on" of the castings for the bridge is mentioned several times in the article, but no definition is provided. I lack the knowledge to create this content, but this should be done before the knowledge is lost. I found very few resources on Google that provided a satisfactory definition of this term. One such source is below.

Note: I seldom edit on Wikipedia for anything other than spelling and grammar. I have not created content.

--Toranize (talk) 07:05, 19 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, thank you. I think note 19 maybe covers the matter but, because it was unreferenced, I have added the reference you found as well as a second. "Burning on" might (just) deserve an article. It certainly deserves a place in Wiktionary but I'm not up to doing that. Thincat (talk) 11:41, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Hurricane
There was a footnote instructing readers on how to interpret the word "hurricane". Which reliable source did these instructions come from? They didn't come from a reliable source. They were original research. If there is a reliable source that discusses this accident report and how the word as used in it should be interpreted, do go ahead and cite it. Otherwise, keep your personal thoughts and links to entirely unrelated documents to yourself. See WP:OR, WP:SYNTH. 94.66.221.72 (talk) 09:50, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Immediate aftermath
I would be interested in reading about what happened immediately after the disaster: How soon was it reported, who was at the scene first, what rescue attempts were made, how were bodies found or retrieved, how was the train and wreckage recovered, etc.? Are there any sources that report on this? Alandeus (talk) 09:49, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Try For a shorter account,  Note that page numbers vary between editions. -- Red rose64 &#x1F98C; (talk) 22:03, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Don't think my local library has those books, though. Would be nice (and easier) to read such information here in Wikipedia. Alandeus (talk) 11:51, 29 December 2022
 * Red for Danger is still in print, although a few years ago the Kichenside material was removed (I don't know why), so the publishers have recently been producing what is essentially a reversion to the second edition. I don't know if Chapter 4 differs at all. -- Red rose64 &#x1F98C; (talk) 22:46, 29 December 2022 (UTC)