The Tay Rail Bridge carries the mainline railway across the Firth of Tay in Scotland between the City of Dundee and the suburb of Wormit in Fife. Its span is 2.75 miles (3.5 kilometres).The present day structure is the second one on this site. From about 1854 there had been plans for a Tay crossing to replace an early train ferry. The first bridge that opened in 1878 was a single track lattice design, notable for lightness and low cost. Its sudden collapse in a high wind on December 28th 1879 was one of the great engineering disasters of history and its causes are still debated today. The second bridge was a double track construction of iron and steel that was opened in1887 and is still in service. In 2003 a strengthening and refurbishing project was recognised by a major award for the scale and difficulty of the work.

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