Bridging the Gaps

"The Challenge": The expansion and amalgamation of the Railway Companies finally in 1863 produced two main protagonists in Scotland. The North British Railway controlling Central and South East Scotland and the Caledonian Railway controlling the South West and the routes North.

Thomas Bouch had since 1854, in his position as Consulting Engineer to the N.B.R., been promoting his conviction that the Forth and Tay rivers could be bridged. The Railway Board however remained sceptical.

The Queensferry site has a depth of about 200 feet therefore Bouch had been promoting a crossing upstream where the river was shallower, between Blackness and Charlestown. This proposal got as far as sinking experimental piers. This was necessary due to the composition of the river bottom. The Forth Basin consists mainly of mud and Bouch's proposal was for a structure 150 feet high, 2 miles long composed of lattice girders to form a single track supported on 61 stone piers "floating in the mud. This was to be achieved by means of a raft. This scheme got as far as experimental tests however due to financial difficulty and the need to restructure the company the tests were curtailed and the Company concentrated instead on upgrading the existing ferry piers and steamers.

The proposals for crossing the Tay and Forth however were near at hand due to commercial pressures and the intense rivalry between the rail companies. Parliamentary powers to construct a bridge across the Tay were granted in 1864. The Chairman of the N.B.R., John Stirling, proposed to the Dundee City Council and Harbour Trustees in 1869 that a bridge be constructed across the river for rail traffic. Construction began in 1871. In 1873 Bouch was laying out his plans for crossing the Forth which were a reworking of his earlier scheme. These were accepted and the Forth Bridge Company was formed and contracts awarded to Messrs. W. Arrol & Co. of Glasgow. It was thus that the two great barriers to trade were to be crossed. We shall see that all would not go well and that alternative constructions would be required.