Like so many people the author, Michael Meighan, failed to appreciate when he was a child how he would go on a school or Boy Scouts bus run, the times he was taken to visit relatives on a trolleybus or a tram, or that during the holidays he might travel on a steam train and a paddle steamer ‘doon the water’ to Dunoon, or some other Clyde Coast resort. Looking back, it is evident that public transport in Glasgow has experienced vast changes. The steam-powered railway gave way to the electric ‘Blue Train’ and the modern diesel. Old railways were lost and new routes took citizens from the new suburbs (or schemes) into the city. The paddle steamers disappeared from the Clyde, as did the ferries, along with the ships and the shipyards. Trams and trolleybuses gave way to modern buses. The horse and cart faded away to be replaced by ever larger petrol and then diesel lorries and vans. Having lived through many of these changes, the author marks the passing of the numerous modes of travel and transportation with Glasgow: A Transport History, a nostalgic look back over more than 100 years of transport development around Glasgow. From the nineteenth century through to the present day, the story is accompanied by evocative photographs of what has now been lost, supplemented by images of transport ephemera, and two network maps.
94 black & white photographs. 128 pages.