Leek, Staffordshire, a busy market town and antique centre.

No 10

Like certain news items, some ghost stories achieve ‘celebrity status' while others, equally as spectacular or creepy, are quickly forgotten or simply dismissed as being far too incredulous to be believed. But there is one never-to-be-forgotten story that the people living along the banks of the River Tay and in Dundee will never forget. Nor even people living in other parts of the world. Such was its impact. Set in the era of the British Empire , it was a time when certain men of science and engineering fully believed they were beginning to conquer Nature. But were they?

It was on the wild, stormy night of 28 th December, 1879 that the recently opened Tay Bridge – then the longest railway bridge in the world – collapsed into the foaming waters below. Minutes before, the Edinburgh to Dundee express, also buffeted by the gale-force winds, had steamed its way onto the ill-fated structure only to plunge, with its six carriages, at that fateful moment, through the central span with the loss of seventy-five passengers and its crew.

This was believed to be one of the worst accidents in the history of British railways and would have repercussions in more senses than one. No attempt was made to rebuild the bridge, a completely new one being constructed in its place. Yet remnants of the first Tay bridge in the form of parallel piles breaking across the surface of the grey waters, can still be seen. Its designer had been the renowned engineer Sir Thomas Bouch who, not long before, had received his knighthood from Queen Victoria as his reward for the project, after she had travelled aboard the Royal Train across the bridge herself.

In his calculations, he had assumed that the River Tay had a firm, rocky foundation. During construction however, this was found to be much the opposite, Bouch instructing that the piles be reinforced with cast iron columns. On completion in 1878 the bridge was tested by running various heavy locomotives over it, before being opened.

After a thorough examination soon after the disaster, of the wreckage of the train and the twisted ironwork on the bed of the River Tay, an official inquiry came to the conclusion that the bridge had been badly designed and constructed, in that no allowance for movement had been made, essential in bridges of that type. Inevitably, this led to a shameful end to Sir Thomas Bouch's engineering career and reputation.

Strangely, local people to this day still maintain that on every anniversary of the accident, a ghostly train crosses the bridge from the Edinburgh side – its vivid red rear lights trailing in the darkness until, halfway across, it abruptly disappears, exactly as witnesses saw of the original train, with its six carriages, on the night of the terrible accident.

Much has been written about the Tay Bridge disaster, and many theories have been put forward concerning its possible ghostly element. But is it possible the intensity of collected grief and shock could actually have triggered a supernatural response into producing such a spectacularly moving memorial to the passengers and train crew who forfeited their lives on that terrible night? Once again – as with so many other ghostly phenomena - we can but wonder.