Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: reinvestgating the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752431609 ISBN 13: 9780752431604

Publisher: Tempus Publishing/NMI Limited, 2004

Over 125 years ago, barely a year and a half after the Tay Railway Bridge was built, William McGonnagal composed his poem about the Tay Bridge Disaster, the poem about Britain’s worst-ever civil engineering disaster. Over 80 people lost their lives in the fall of the Tay Bridge, but how did it happen? The accident reports say that high wind and poor construction were to blame, but Peter Lewis, an Open University engineering professor, tells the real story of how the bridge so spectacularly collapsed in December 1879.

About the Author:

Peter Lewis was born in 1945 in England and works for the Open Universitiy in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. He actively researches both current and historic accidents and disasters, and hold the position of Reader in Forensic Engineering. He frequently gives public lectures on the Tay Bridge and Dee Bridge disasters and the Oxford derailment of 1874. He also lectures on case studies of forensic engineering and polymer engineering. He acts as an expert witness and has appeared in numerous courts, including the Irish High Court, the Patents Court, Technology and Construction Court, High Court, County and Magistrates Courts. As a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Mining and Mineral Extraction and Member of the Forensic Science Society, he advises companies on best practice and safety matters.