good morning from glasgow and i'm at the entrance to the third oldest
subway in the world it's glasgow subway and we're gonna go and have a look and
see what it's like so why don't you come with me and i'll catch you on the train
right so the station i chose to start my journey on was buchanan street
which had this fantastic travelator which unlike some destinations i could mention works
just perfectly conveying me under the streets of glasgow city centre's main shopping area
now as i said it was the third underground railway system to open in 1896
it came after london and budapest if you're interested
and it's basically a six and a half mile large circular loop of two four-foot narrow
gauge tracks now buchanan street is one of 15 stations on the line and it's pretty much on
the eastern edge of the loop which runs both north and south of the river clyde
morning do i use this um thing at the
gate
it's just a single ticket you get so you need to go to the window every time you
travel all right cool thank you very much cheers
okay so well in or out i guess that worked ok
let's try the outer which one's coming in as well well two minutes it doesn't really matter does it
right okay now i'm not sure at this stage whether the
i should have researched this whether the outer goes clockwise or anti-clockwise
yeah so what i did was buy a one day day tripper ticket which cost me 13 pounds 10
pence and allowed me to travel not just on the subway but also regular train and bus routes plus
a couple of ferries in the strathclyde region as the lady said every time i entered the station i
had to show the card and then they printed off an individual ticket so i could get through the gates
so on boarding the train the first thing you notice is how small the carriages are
now it's quiet at the moment for obvious reasons
but i would imagine they can get pretty cramped in rush hour during normal times
and just to confirm as you can see here the outer line color-coded orange
does travel clockwise whilst the inner line travels anti-clockwise
well i've decided to leave the subway at a station called Kelvinhall which had an island
platform interestingly enough because i know there are not many of those still around certainly
not on the london underground primarily because of safety concerns but i like it so
far it's quite quirky it's very small i think it's actually well the trains are actually smaller than
those on the deep underground lines in london such as the northern line and there certainly
isn't a lot of headroom on the trains themselves but very good and the tunnels are quite small as
well so what i'm gonna do is i'm going to nip back down you can just see the subway sign there
so like i said unless you know it's there i'm not sure if you'd
if you'd really figure out where you were going or where you could catch it from but yeah
i'm gonna head back down in there and have another ride on it why not i'll see you later
the tunnel diameter is 11 feet or 3.35 meters which is indeed smaller than the deep level
lines of the london underground you can really appreciate how small they are when you're right up
close to them as you can see here
okay guys well i've just come out of the subway at Kelvinbridge
there's a fantastic bridge just behind me there some great cast iron railings i'm going to check
that out in a minute and obviously the bridge itself carries traffic over the river kelvin
which you would expect and kelvinbridge itself is also the deepest of the subway stations
but even then it's only a couple of flights of stairs and a small escalator ride to the surface
so it's not that deep but yeah i'm gonna have a little look around and then i'm going to nip back
on the outer circle and carry on my journey so i'll catch you in a bit
as you can see here strathclyde partnership for transport have provided escalator access up to
the bridge which is obviously a massive help but it doesn't really go with its
surroundings very well but what do you think please let me know in the comments below
and look at this impressive coat of arms on the side of the span here
it's also good to know that it's been left alone by the graffiti beneath it
you can get a better view of the escalator access from up here but
like i said for me it doesn't really fit in with its historic surroundings very well
well you would assume that because the subway station is called kelvinbridge
that this would be the name of the bridge but it is in
fact just a common name for what is officially the great western bridge
the cast iron bridge was completed in 1891 and is actually now a grade a listed building
i had a wander down the steps on the other side
as there was something i wanted to have a closer look at over here
and so i walked down the eastern side of the river a bit and please let me know if i'm correct or not
here but what i think i was looking at was the site of the old kelvinbridge railway station
do you see the old tunnels here i'd love to know a bit more about this if anybody can help
anyway it was time to get back underground and i found myself on
the island platform again waiting for a train now this time back on the outer circle line
the trains operated on both lines are the same length and consist of a power car
trailer car and one in the middle and they've been in service now for around 40 years i believe and
you can really get an idea of how small they are when they come into the station like this
but i thought the trains in general were really well kept clean and bright on the outside much
to do with the colour scheme i think which also gives it a modern appearance which in itself is
quickly diminished by the time you step on board and notice how quiet it still is in normal times the
capacity of these trains would be 112 seats and 165 standing and like i said before i can imagine
overcrowding can be a problem during busy periods again if you've got any experience of this please
let me know in the comments below and my pet hate these days as you may have gathered is the amount
of signs plastered everywhere telling you not to do this or that but i think where there is signage
on these trains it is subtle and quite clear without the need to go completely over the top
because i think by now everybody should know how to behave during these crazy times to be honest
it was getting late in the day now and i was nearing the end of my time on the glasgow subway
i think i'd managed to pass through every station at least once and alight at several of them too
obviously it's a lot less complex than most subway systems and you can't really go far wrong
if you get on either line then sooner or later you're going to arrive at the station you want
it was time for me to take one last short escalator ride to the surface
i exited at st enoch's which was pretty much where i started from earlier on in the day
okay guys and that was the glasgow subway i'm at st enoch's and incidentally that building
behind me is the old headquarters of the glasgow subway i hope you've enjoyed that
if you've got any comments regarding the history of the line anything really that'd be really
useful if you could share them with me and until next time thanks for watching and cheers for now