3-052-369 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Tay Bridge Disaster: steam launches and divers' barge employed in search, 1880. 'The loss of lives is now reckoned at seventy-five, not one person in the train having the slightest chance of escape...Diving operations were continued daily throughout the last week, except one day, when they were stopped by the rough weather. Two parties of divers have been engaged in the search, one employed by the Dundee Harbour Trustees, the other by the North British Railway Company. A steamboat and a proper diving-barge were used by the former, and a steam-launch by the latter, with six or seven experienced men - Fox, and Harley, and Simpson, who were previously acquainted with the bottom and the foundations of the bridge...The depth of water, at the times when the divers have been working, did not exceed 20 ft., but the water has been exceedingly thick and muddy...so that they could seldom see a few inches before them. Their movements have also been much impeded by the quantity of sharp fragments of iron lying about or sticking tip. These might cut the ropes or the breathing-tubes which connect the divers with the surface; or they might chance to make a hole in the water-proof and air-proof dress upon which their safety depends'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.