Scottish Transport

No. 59 (2007)

Coronation car No. 1242 heading south down Hope Street on service 29 in 1961. front cover

Robert Bow. Glasgow Coronattion cars 1938-1949. 3-18
Illustrreations (all black & whhite). Personal sadnness at end of Empire Exhibition, especially at closure of amusenment park and loss of very frequent t ram service to Pollokshields, Allocations of new cars following the exhibition; burning out of No. 1169 at Bellahouston.

Bobby Mitchell. Memories of a 'Western' apprentice. 19-25
Au thor born in Crosshouse in 1948, son of aa brass moulder at Glenfield & Kennedy which made water valves for hydro-electric systems. After James Hamilton High school in Kilmarnock he worked at McKinnon's a subsidiary of the Tay Forth Group where he cleaned the filters of trucks. He became an apprentice at the Western SMT Nursery Road Works in Kilmarnock. One of the less arduous tasks was polishing the vehicles in the Sword Vintage bus collection including The Pride of Tannochbrae used in the BBC TV series Dr Finlay's Casebook. Western SMT followed an obsessive policy of  recycling old components and this was reflected in apprentice training. In general apprentices were treated well but one serious error on the author's paart led to his hand being clamped in a vice and it being wire brushed until it bled. There were the usual West of Scotland questions about which team did you supporrt to eastablish one's religion. Illustrations.

Geoff Price. Underlying art. 26-30
Ian G. McM Stewart.was a Consultant Engineer with DSSR a Glasgow firm supplying services for buildings. Ian studied technical drawing and is an excellent calligrapher. His friend Alan Carlaw pursuaded Inverbeg Galleries of Luss to produce a series of six prints of Glasgow trams which were sold through the Fine Art trade. Ian is the Author of the luxurious The Glasgow Tramcar published by the Scottish Tramway Museum Society in 1983. He also contributed his drawings to the books by Alan Brotchie on Lanarkshire's trams and Bruce Maund;s The tramways of Wallasey and Birkenhead and to a work on Blackpool's Rigby Road Works

Garry Ward. 'Dolly's mixture' [Garners' Bus Service Ltd.]. 31-4
Based in Bridge of Weir with some stage carriage servvices in Paisley arrea, but mainly contract work especially when Hunterston A nuclear power station was being constructed.

Gordon Casely. The magnificent obsession. 35-41.
The curse of Sprinters and the Classes 158 and 170 used on former InterCity services within Scotland and have since been  replaced by pensioned off HSTs which have been modified with retention toilets and power doors (both not doable when in front-line service). Illustratios (all colour)

Richard J.S. Wiseman. Six is memotable. 42-5.
Former Royal Navy Petty Officer radar mechanic on HMS Sefton. In 1946 the ship berthed at Plantation Quay in Glasgow and as he was the ship's postman and when on shore he was able to see and photograph the trams. In 1956 he married Anne at St. Chad's Church in Woodseats Sheffield and caught the Thames-Clyde Express to Glasgow. On the Sunday they toured Glasgow by tramcar (Kevin knows that sailors have that extra something, but Eileen I think would have mutinied at that). After a homeymoon on Skye on the return journey he managed a Glasgow photograph. The illustrations (all rscept last two black & white):

David L. Thomson. View from the platform.  46-7
Critical of public's excessive use of private cars (illustration shows house with two) and considers incompatible with good public trannsport: cites Professor Charles McKean's Battle for the North; tte Tay and Forth Bridges and the 19th-Century railway wars. McKean argued that in 1878 and 1879 that thw North British Railway Company were running trains over a bridge [the fist Tay Bridge] the Company itself had not built, using carriages rented from others over a track for which it retained only a partial responsibility, the bulk of the responsibility having been contracted out.

Graham Ewing. Some Guys I knew. 48-9.
Glasgow Corporation had 19 Guy Arab utility buses delivered between 1942 and 1944 and as a boy he saw a Guy pass his home with a destinartion blind 5B Croftfoot and on holiday in Ayr Guy Arabs with their distinctive gearbox sounds and whistle from their flywheels. Illustrations (black & white)

Glasgow Corporation trolleybuses (BUT s with Crossley bodies) on Victoria Bridge and in Ingram Street: TB 104 and TB 105 (colour). rear cover

No, 61 Edinburgh horse tram, the Edinburgh Manchesters, Glasgow PW department, Glasgow Numerical Printing.Co., 20W Carriage Bulb Society.

No. 62 Greenock railway flooding 1912, Dalrymple makes it simple, Paisley bus operators 1950s, Dundee trackless trams, Edinburgh streamliners.

No. 63 Riverside Museum opens, SITS diamond jubilee, memories of Glasgow tram tours, Edinburgh Shrubhill standards 1934.

No. 64 Aberdeen's trams, Summerlee tramway in 2012, Aberdeen preserved buses, new tram for Edinburgh, a failed preservation attempt.

No. .65   Dundee trams, Edinburgh tram Service 16, a cruise on the Forth & Clyde Canal, Glasgow buses, Glasgow 488.

No. 66 Trams return to Edinburgh, Stronachie distillery tramway, Musselburgh trams, Deeside line, Scottish inventor Robert Wm. Thomson.

No. 67 (2015)

Glasgow Citybus Optare Solo Electric in George Square en route to Riverside Museum superimposed on Coronation tram in Dumbarton Road. front cover

Alan W. Brotchie. ... another story altogether, a remarkable piece of detective work 2-8.
Struan T.  Robertson. The Glasgow Horse Tramways. (2000) page 59: this article shows that it was a GF Milnes car made in Birkenhead in 1894 for the Vale of Clyde Tramway Company which following its liquidation became Glasgow Corporation No. 605; Stirling & Bridge of Allan car No. 5 and Dundee No. 9. 

Garry Ward. "Odd men out"  in the Western SMT fleet. 9-17
A Guy Arab acquired during World War II and was based at Ayr. AY 209 (ASD 409) was fitted with a Northern Counties low-bridge utility body, but this was replaced  in 1948 by a Northern Counties L27/26R It was withdrawn in 1962, but saw further service with Northern  Roadways until 1964. AD 50 (CS 2024) was a Leyland TS7 single decker and part of Greenock Motor Services fleet. In 1950 it was rebodied by Burlingham in Blackpool. This followed the removal of its body at Alexanders coachworks in Stirling and its chassis being rebuilt to TD4 standards. It remained in service on Ayr local services until 1960. AY 191 (ASD 253) was a Guy Arab received in July 1943 with a Massey highbridge body and Gardner 5LW engine. It was placed in service in Ayr. In 1951, partly as an apprentice training exercise it was rebuilt at Kilmarnock using Leyland stored parts and a Gardner 6LW engine. The information came fromAndrew Fulton and Jimmy Robertson, the former apprentices involved.  It lasted in service until 1961 and served a further threee years as a training vehicle.

David L. Thomson. Where angels fear to tread. 18-20
On 12 November 1977 the MV Jupiter on its 14.15 Dunoon to Gourock sailing was involved in saving the Fulgar, the Clyde Port Authority's small  vessel which serviced lights from stranding on  the Gantocks reef.

Ian Stewart. "Semi-high-speed". 21-6
Glasgow had a very standard tram fleet, but the motors were not all :upgraded tó 60hp from 30hp until the early 1950s. The higher speed enabled  them to meet compettition from buses. Regenerative braking on standards was incompatible with mercury arc rectifier at Spiersbridge. Illustrations

Frank Mitchell. The Borders Railway, Newcraighall to Tweedbank. 21-9

Gordon Casely. First Scotrail: our part in its downfall. 30-6.
Highly critical of the operator's policy of using very basic multiple units for all its services with few toilets, badly located windows, lack of provision for luggage and bicycles and uncomfortable seating. The First Group is an old fashioned bus operator which employs untrained staff. It has been replaced by Abellio which has taken advantage of the superanuated HSTa updated with retention toilets and power doors (why couldn't it have been done when in their prime and why do none serve Eastt Anglia?). Illustrations;

George Fairley. Edinburgh trams in the snow. 37-8
On Saturday 30 January 1954 there was a heavy snowfall and the Author took three black & white photographs

David Hunt. Alexander Atlanteans: the story of vehicles that have featured in motor shows or abroad. 39-45
The Leyland Motors rear-engined bus chassis was launched in 1956, but production did not begin until 1958. Two prototypes were fitted with Metro-Cammell-Wemann bodies and these went to Wallasey and James of Ammanford. A third with an Alexander highbridge body went to Glasgow and this was exxhibited at Earl's Court in London.

Letter to the Ed itor. 46

Aberdeen's last horse tram. Gordon Casely
Photograph taken in 1971 on a farm at Marywell of a horse tramcar body which had formed part of a summerhouse

Frank Mitchell. New Edinburgh trams. 47-8
Three colour photographs of those wonderful trams at Edinburgh Park Station, arriving from west at Haymarket; turning fromm South St Andrew Street into Princes Street

Edinburgh Volvo 7900 Hybrid travelling fom the Diving Village to the Royal Commonwealth Pool conveying athletes at the Commonwealth Games in 2014. rear cover upper

Alexander Dennís Enviro 500 on FirstBus simpliCITY Castlemilk. rear cover lower

No. 68 Glasgow's ex-Paisley trams, Edinburgh double-deck cable tram, MacBrayne's "Colurnba", narrow-gauge gasworks locos, Stark's buses of Dunbar.

No. 69 Paisley boyhood with trams, Northern Roadways, Edinburgh tram service 2, Waterloo Street, 'The Glasgow Tramcar' addendum, Brian Longworth.

No. 70 Edinburgh bus rebuilds, remote Scottish tramroads, exhibition model trams, Glasgow poem, Glasgow night trams, Dundee trams, Ian Stewart.

No. 71 Aberdeen Tram 15, model tram depot, Edinburgh bus rebuilds, Robert Davidson, Scottish model trams, Alexander 266, Glasgow 125, a crashed Lancaster, Dixons' pugs.

No.72 (2020)

David Bowler. Glasgow's experimental lightweight tramcars. 4-11

Keith Jones. The Deeside battery railcar: a bold experiment. 12-18

Garry Ward. The mystery of the missing Daimler Fleetline, 19-25

David Bowler, Edinburgh's not-so-standard standard tramcars. 26-39

Graham Ewing. Young innocence, 40

Keith Jones. Centenary of Aberdeen Corporation buses and the Aberdeen rustic shelters. 41-7

Sfuart Montgomery. Lothian in lockdown. 48-53

Goordon Casely. Can you shed any light? 54-5