The 19th century or Victorian Age was considered to be an era of progress and optimism, from canal and horse, through railways to the dawn of aviation and the car.  But this advance was often uneven. A good example of this is the story of the first railway bridge over the River Tay at Dundee in Scotland.

For many years since the beginning of railways in Britain, developments in Scotland had been frustrated by the wide east coast estuaries of the Forth and Tay, limiting travel from Edinburgh to Dundee and Aberdeen. It was planned to build bridges to deal with this problem.

In this talk Jock provides an account of the conception, design and building of the Tay Bridge and what happened next…from triumph to tragedy.