Glasgow’s growth has always depended on how people and goods moved around it. Before the railways, the canals were the arteries of industry: the Forth and Clyde Canal opened from sea to sea in 1790, and the Monkland Canal brought cheap coal into the city. Both fell out of use in the twentieth century, but the Millennium Link, begun in 1999, reopened the Forth and Clyde to boats.
The railways transformed the Victorian city. Central Station, opened on 1 August 1879, is now the busiest station in Scotland, and its neighbour Queen Street serves Edinburgh and the north. Beneath the streets, the Glasgow Subway opened on 14 December 1896, making it the third-oldest underground railway in the world after London and Budapest. Its circular route and bright orange trains later earned it the nickname of the Clockwork Orange.
On the streets, the Glasgow trams ran from 1872 until 1962, and theirs was the last city tramway in Britain to close before the modern revivals. Glasgow Corporation Transport ran the trams, buses, trolleybuses and subway under one municipal banner, and was regarded as one of the finest transport undertakings in Europe.
The motor age brought the most radical change of all. Work on the M8 began in 1965, and the inner ring road cut through Anderston, Townhead and Charing Cross; Glasgow’s motorways and the Kingston Bridge, opened in 1970, tell that story. The Clyde Tunnel opened in 1963 and Glasgow Airport at Abbotsinch in 1966, completing the network that shapes the city today.
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