I thought of this plot about a year ago and I have never tried to do anything with it, so if anyone wants it they can have it.
In December 1879 the Tay Bridge in north east Scotland collapsed with the loss of 75 lives.
It is known that Karl Marx had booked a seat on the train. He had spent Christmas in Edinburgh (at that time 25 December was a working day in Scotland) and he wanted to see the New Year in with friends in the North. He was not on the train, though, because he caught a cold and postponed his journey.
A witness to the disaster told the Tay Bridge Inquiry that he had seen an explosion on board the train and that the train had jumped the rails before the bridge collapsed. In other words, an explosion on the train had caused the bridge to collapse. The Inquiry rejected his testimony although there was another witness who made a similar claim about an explosion on board the train.
The Tay Bridge was not brand new but had seen about eighteen months' satisfactory service, including the winter of 1878. It had received at least one award for its architecture and design.
And at that time railway employees had ready access to explosives. I myself came across a cardboard box that had contained explosives in a former railway yard only a month or so ago. Explosives were regularly attached to railway tracks in order to communicate signal aspects to engine drivers, as well as being in common use in mining and quarrying into which the trains were integrated.
So is it possible that the disaster was actually the result of an explosion, and that the explosion was an attempt to assassinate Karl Marx? He probably had plenty of enemies by that time. Did some enemy of Marx bribe railway staff to put a bomb on the track, or on the train? Did the Inquiry attempt to whitewash the plot? Did Karl Marx miss the train because someone tipped him off? Does anyone feel a Dan Brown coming on? It would be like a Titanic with steam engines.
Ken Johnson
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Script Frenzy 2008: The Cross Dressing Detective
NaNoWriMo 2007 winner: Hell and Highwater
Occasional Trainer's Diary
