British Transport Commission - Passenger Transport in Glasgow & District - report, 1951 : map of the railways in Glasgow and district
The cover of a fascinating 1951 report into passenger transport in the Glasgow area - an almost unique example of the relatively new British Transport Commission taking a look at opportunities to effectively integrate their rail and bus systems based on electrification. It is fair to say that the major operator they didn't operate, the municipally controlled Glasgow Corporation Transport, didn't come 'well' out of the recommendations - Glasgow operated a famous and extensive tram and bus system that ran well outside the city boundaries and that the report recommended abandonment of. The suugestion was that the nationalised Scottish Bus Group companies should operate such services, coordinated with the newly electrified railways. Oddly the SBG had a board member whereas GCT did not. In the eventual outcome GCT did indeed pull in to the city boundary although until the eventual creation of the GGPTE in the '70s there was little or no sign of any coordination between modes.
It is arguable that the one policy that flowed from the suburban 'Blue Train' electrification (that was in itself successful) was that abandonment of out-of-boundary tram services to places such as Airdrie - and perhaps that helped, additionally,to fatal weaken the tram system which was to be abandoned, infamously, in 1962 - much regretted. The report makes many other suggestions most notably for the abandonment of Queen St High Level Station and it's replacement by a new North Station on the site of Buchanan Street station. This did not happen and in fact quite the reverse came to pass.
One other oddity was the report recommended, in line with national policy that was formally agreed that same year, the electrification should use the 'standard' 1500vDC overhead system. Within a few years BR had overturned the recommendation and was using 25kv AC following French experiments and this was the system delivered on the 'Blue Train' network.
Diagram 7 in the report is a fine plan of the railways in the immediate Glasgow area showing a good few that went under various rationalisation schemes.
British Transport Commission - Passenger Transport in Glasgow & District - report, 1951 : map of the railways in Glasgow and district
The cover of a fascinating 1951 report into passenger transport in the Glasgow area - an almost unique example of the relatively new British Transport Commission taking a look at opportunities to effectively integrate their rail and bus systems based on electrification. It is fair to say that the major operator they didn't operate, the municipally controlled Glasgow Corporation Transport, didn't come 'well' out of the recommendations - Glasgow operated a famous and extensive tram and bus system that ran well outside the city boundaries and that the report recommended abandonment of. The suugestion was that the nationalised Scottish Bus Group companies should operate such services, coordinated with the newly electrified railways. Oddly the SBG had a board member whereas GCT did not. In the eventual outcome GCT did indeed pull in to the city boundary although until the eventual creation of the GGPTE in the '70s there was little or no sign of any coordination between modes.
It is arguable that the one policy that flowed from the suburban 'Blue Train' electrification (that was in itself successful) was that abandonment of out-of-boundary tram services to places such as Airdrie - and perhaps that helped, additionally,to fatal weaken the tram system which was to be abandoned, infamously, in 1962 - much regretted. The report makes many other suggestions most notably for the abandonment of Queen St High Level Station and it's replacement by a new North Station on the site of Buchanan Street station. This did not happen and in fact quite the reverse came to pass.
One other oddity was the report recommended, in line with national policy that was formally agreed that same year, the electrification should use the 'standard' 1500vDC overhead system. Within a few years BR had overturned the recommendation and was using 25kv AC following French experiments and this was the system delivered on the 'Blue Train' network.
Diagram 7 in the report is a fine plan of the railways in the immediate Glasgow area showing a good few that went under various rationalisation schemes.