Tay Bridge Disaster: The People's Story

By Robin Lumley and Terry Jones

On Sunday, 28 December 1879, the 5.27 mail and passenger train from Burntisland to Dundee went out across the world’s longest bridge on a black, fierce night, only to be dashed to pieces in the River Tay as the bridge collapsed during one of the worst storms in Scottish history. The Tay Bridge Disaster remains to this day the worst catastrophic failure of a civil engineering structure in Britain – the land equivalent of the Titanic sinking. In this book, author Robin Lumley brings a poignant human perspective to the fateful night in 1879 that shook Britain and the world of engineering to their core and sent a nation into mourning for the seventy-five souls lost to the dark, freezing waters of the River Tay. Packed full of personal tales and offering technical appendices for those who wish to further their specialised knowledge, Tay Bridge Disaster: The People’s Story is a must-read for anyone interested in this tragic event in Scottish and British history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780752499604

Robin Lumley

ROBIN LUMLEY is best known as a record producer and keyboardist member of bands with Phil Collins, David Bowie and Roy Wood, amongst many others. However, he has long been an avid railway and military history fan, as well as a railway modeller who has contributed regularly to magazines on that subject in the UK and Australia. This is his first full-length book, inspired by the fact that his great-grandfather missed being on the ill-fated train by a hair’s breadth.