Battle for the North : the Tay and Forth Bridges and the 19th-century railway wars / Charles McKean.

Main entry:

McKean, Charles.

Title & Author:

Battle for the North : the Tay and Forth Bridges and the 19th-century railway wars / Charles McKean.

Publication:

London : Granta, 2006.

Description:

390 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. The engine of modernisation -- 2. The battle for Scotland -- 3. Bouch's bridges -- 4. The longest and cheapest railway bridge in the world -- 5. The abbreviated life of the first Tay bridge -- 6. A choreographed inquiry -- 7. The tumbling of Bouch's bridges -- 8. Phoenix in the Tay -- 9. Conquering the Forth -- 10. Warfare sublimated.

Summary:

"The first Tay Bridge collapsed into the sea in 1879, drowning seventy-two people travelling by train to Dundee. The bridge had been hailed as a triumph of construction, and its fall shook society's confidence in the excellence of Victorian engineering." "The collapse was a catastrophe for the North British Railway, the bridge's financiers, competing with the Caledonian Railway for an equal share of the railway traffic from England. The Caledonian's west coast route from London to Aberdeen could only be matched on the east coast if the huge estuaries of the Tay and Forth were bridged." "Charles McKean offers new conclusions about why the first Tay Bridge collapsed and follows the rise and fall of the career of engineer Thomas Bouch. He tells how the Forth and Tay Bridges, the largest bridges in the world, eventually became reality. Costing [pound]4 million and constructed by over 5,000 men they were without precedent in terms of scale and engineering." "This tale follows the railway battle for Scotland from 1845 and the people it involved: from the Victorian entrepreneurs, poets, town councillors; to the engineers, briggers, and rivet boys; to the pioneering contractor William Arrol who constructed the bridges that stand today. Battle for the North explores the complicated reality underlying the Victorian pursuit of progress."--BOOK JACKET.

ISBN:

1862078521
9781862078529

Subject:

Railroads Scotland History.
Tay Bridge Disaster, Dundee, Scotland, 1879.
Catastrophe du pont du Tay, Dundee, Écosse, 1879.
Railroads.
Tay Bridge (Dundee, Scotland : Railroad bridge) History.
Forth Bridge (South Queensferry, Scotland : Railroad bridge) History.
Forth Bridge (South Queensferry, Écosse : Pont-rails) Histoire.
Scotland.
Scotland Dundee.
Scotland Dundee Tay Bridge (Railroad Bridge)
Scotland South Queensferry Forth Bridge (Railroad Bridge)

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 250560
Call No.: BIB 180058
Status: Available

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