Everyone agrees that Glasgow needs better, more efficient and affordable public transport. At a time when the basics of the long-awaited Glasgow Metro system are being worked out, the city should look to its past to rediscover its silent service.
That’s not the heavy, road-punishing battery-electric buses of today, with their limited range and high-cost, battery replacement after a few years of operation, but the trolleybus, which ran successfully in Glasgow from 1949 to 1967, before being scrapped prematurely in the orgy of motorway building and related "redevelopment", whose damaging effects resonate to this day.
Glasgow trolleybuses were silent, pollution-free, and highly efficient. I recall travelling to school daily, speedily and without fuss, between 1962 and 1967, from Battlefield to Cowcaddens on the number 107, which ran from Muirend to Maitland Street -that’s when there actually was a Cowcaddens! I also confess that I was allowed by sympathetic staff to drive trolleys round Hampden Garage at the age of 16, when I should have been swotting for my Highers. But that’s another story.
I have just written a book on the subject, and rather than looking back to those days, when the city scrapped its trolleybuses and replaced them with polluting diesel buses in that heyday of the oil, car and motorway lobbies, whose message Glasgow councillors swallowed whole, having dealt with the tram system, five years previously, I argue that the modern trolleybus has a part to play in Glasgow.
In Vancouver, I have experienced the city’s fast and popular trolleybuses, noticing just how the technology has improved since Glasgow’s last ran in 1967. Traditionally, trolleybuses had to slow down at junctions in the overhead wires, but, in Vancouver, using light and flexible overhead wiring, the trolleys scoot through the junctions and negotiate points at a fair lick, with no delay to other vehicles on the road.
Vancouver, which opened its system in 1948, one year before Glasgow did likewise, has kept the trolleybus, developed and valued it, especially for its environmental benefits. Transport chiefs have just announced that they are replacing their current fleet with bang-up-to-date trolleys, securing the system’s future for the next 30 years, affirming that trolleybus technology is away ahead of batteries. Their future is under two wires, rather than chargers.
You’ll find the same story in cities such as Salzburg or Marseilles, whose trolleybuses can operate on battery off the wires and recharge when under them, giving operational flexibility and saving on installation costs.
Glasgow needs to join the world’s 245 trolleybus operators of today. Cheaper to build than a tram system, with no rails to be laid, trolleybuses are more flexible in operation, and would be just the ticket for getting Glasgow’s beleaguered public transport back on track.
I might be recalling the heyday of the Glasgow trolleybus in my book, but the clear message is that the trolleybus has its part to play if Glasgow wants to stay on the move in the future. How about it SPT?
Hugh Dougherty is the author of Trolleybuses: Glasgow’s Silent Service, published by Stenlake at £12.95
Agenda is a column for outside contributors. Contact: agenda@theherald.co.uk
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