Thomas Bouch

Infobox Engineer


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name = Sir Thomas Bouch
nationality =
birth_date =birth date|1822|2|25|mf=y
birth_place = Thursby, Cumbria, England
death_date =Death date and age|1880|10|30|1822|2|25|df=yes
death_place = Moffat, Scotland
education =
spouse =
parents =
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discipline = Civil engineer
Structural engineer
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significant_buildings=
significant_projects = Waverley Station, Tay Rail Bridge
significant_design =
awards =Sir Thomas Bouch (pronEng|ˈbaʊtʃ) (25 February 1822 - 30 October 1880) was a railway engineer in Victorian Britain.

He was born in Thursby, Cumbria, England and lived in Edinburgh. He helped develop the caisson and the roll-on/roll-off train ferry. He worked initially for the North British Railway and helped design parts of Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He set up as an independent consultant, during which time he built a rail line to St Andrews in Fife. The railway suffered numerous mishaps owing to poor quality engineering, such as the use of old rail lines. He also built a number of railway bridges, at Belah and Deepdale on an important cross-Pennines route (now defunct), but which survived until the era of Dr Beeching in the 1960s.

Tay Bridge

He designed the first Tay Rail Bridge whilst working for the Edinburgh and Northern Railway. Queen Victoria travelled over it at the official opening in 1878, and she awarded him a knighthood in recognition of his achievement in 1879. However, the bridge collapsed on December 28, 1879 when it was hit by strong side winds. A train was travelling over it at the time, and 75 people died.

The subsequent public inquiry revealed that the railway company sacrificed safety and durability to save costs. Sloppy working practices such as poor smelting and the re-use of girders dropped into the sea during construction were factors in the bridge's collapse.

The inquiry concluded that the bridge was "badly designed, badly built, and badly maintained". All of the high girders section fell during the accident, and analysis of the archives has shown that the design of cast iron columns with integral lugs holding the tie bars was a critical mistake. The lugs were composed of cast iron, which is brittle under tension. Many other bridges had been built to a similar design using cast iron columns and wrought iron tie bars, but none used this design detail. Gustav Eiffel built many such bridges in France in the 1860s, some surviving and still carrying railway traffic.

As the engineer, Thomas Bouch was blamed for the collapse of the Tay bridge, his assistant Charles Meik, having merely left an impression that he "was aptly named", implying that he had no great influence over the design and construction.

After the inquiry, Bouch rapidly removed and reinforced similar lugs on the new bridge he had built at Montrose (Angus), but after another inspection, the bridge was demolished and replaced.

The remains of the original Tay bridge were demolished and replaced by an entirely new design by William Henry Barlow and his son Crawford Barlow. Some of the wrought iron girders were re-used in the new double track bridge by cutting them in half and re-welding to form wider structures for the track. The brick and masonry piers from the old bridge were left as breakwaters for the new piers, which were monocoques of wrought iron and steel.

Forth Bridge

Bouch's design for the Forth Bridge had been accepted and the foundation stone laid, but the project was cancelled due to the Tay Bridge Disaster. An entirely different design was proposed by Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Fowler. It was to be a cantilever bridge, not a suspension bridge as proposed by Bouch. The bridge was completed in 1890.

Thomas Bouch retired to Moffat, his health deteriorated, and he died a few months after the public inquiry into the disaster finished. He is buried in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.

References

*Shipway, J S, "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press (2004)
*Lewis, Peter R, "Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay", Tempus (2004).
*Rapley, John, "Thomas Bouch: The Builder of the Tay Bridge", Tempus (2007)

Persondata
NAME= Bouch, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=railway engineer
DATE OF BIRTH=1822
PLACE OF BIRTH=Thursby, Cumbria, England, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH=30 October 1880
PLACE OF DEATH=