"The best-hated man in England" built a huge machine to test 19th-century engineering – and it can still rend steel slabs
Oh! Ill-fated bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
"A BIG bridge for a small city." So said US president Ulysses S. Grant of the Tay Bridge. A marvel of Victorian engineering, spanning 3.5 kilometres across the river Tay in eastern Scotland, the thread-like crossing linked the factories and jute mills of Dundee and the coal fields of Fife. But its glory was short-lived. On 28 ...
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