Day 24 - From Lowland to Highland

Glasgow to Callendar

I've known people who are colour blind and have difficulty identifying particular colours. I've also known people who are tone-deaf and who couldn't, as the saying goes, carry a tune in a bucket. I am neither of these things, fortunately, though I do admit to having a similar and equally troubling affliction.

I think I might be bus-blind. I'm not sure if 'bus-blindness' is actually a thing, but if it is then I fear I am thus afflicted. 

Telling one design of bus from another is something I genuinely struggle with, though of course this isn't helped by the fact that few of them seem to have manufacturers badges or model names emblazoned on them. Oh sure, some of them occasionally have a badge telling you who supplied the engine or perhaps a cryptic graphic alluding to the coachbuilder built into a ventilation grille somewhere, but often little more.

So whenever I come across bus enthusiasts making notes of fleet numbers and the like, as I do now while dropping off my backpack at Glasgow's Buchanan Street bus station's left luggage facility, I'm genuinely impressed with the apparent ease with which they can tell a Northern Counties-bodied Volvo B10M from an ECW-bodied Leyland Olympian when to me neither appear to have any clear distinguishing features of any sort. 

Of course, it wasn't like this when I was growing up. In the 1960's buses had radiator badges and chrome-plated lettering bearing proud, heroic names like Bridgemaster, Regent and Atlantean. Some went even further. 

Take the Guy Arab, for example, a double decker introduced by Guy Motors in the 1930’s. This had a bulky and highly distinctive mascot of a native American chief’s head complete with ceremonial feathered head dress fitted to the top of its radiator. You really couldn't miss it. It was certainly striking, though it did make you wonder what a Wolverhampton-based motor company were thinking of when they decided to stick the head of a native American on a bus and called it an Arab. I mean, Arab in what sense, exactly? Apparently, the company's advertising slogan of the time was “Feathers in our Cap” which perhaps gives some sense of what they were trying to achieve, but as brands go this one is definitely up at the bizarre end of the scale.

Today there seem to be very few badges or nameplates to be seen and one double decker can therefore look pretty much like another – driver at the front, engine at the back, entrance facing the driver, and so on. It's a ubiquitous design, but its sheer universality possibly blinds us to the fact that this is a British design classic every bit as impressive as the Mini or the Dyson vacuum cleaner, a true 'Eureka!' moment in British engineering design, and its arrival on Britain's roads caused a revolution.

In the years following World War 2, bus manufacturers renewed their search for the answer to a surprisingly difficult question - how to get more passengers on a bus. An answer was becoming imperative. The growing popularity of the private car meant that bus operators were desperate for more efficient, cost-effective vehicles that could carry more fare-paying passengers. The time was right for a new kind of bus, though this isn't as easy as it sounds. 

Guy Arabs

The main problem faced by post-war bus designers was that the engine kept getting in the way. With the half-cab design, the engine and the driver’s cab monopolises virtually the whole of the front of the bus. With the stairs and platform then taking up all of the rear, that means only around 60% of the bottom deck was left for fare-paying passengers. But where else could you put everything? Placing the engine under the floor significantly raised the floor height, which was fine for a single decker but totally impractical for double deckers which would then be much too high. Side engined designs were also tried and discarded. If only you could stick the engine on the back somehow...

In fact, there had already been experiments with rear-engined buses but engineers soon realised that sticking a powerful engine under the back seat led to levels of engine noise that were totally unacceptable to passengers, and it still took up too much space.

Side-engined AEC Q2

Then two things happened. First, Leyland discovered that if you place the engine sideways across the back of a bus on a sort of ledge outside of the bus body, then both the space taken up by the engine and its noise were greatly reduced. Then in 1956 the government helpfully amended the regulations to increase the length of a double-decker to 30 feet (9.1m), and it dawned on Leyland's engineers that this might allow enough space for an entrance to be located at the front just ahead of the front wheel. Now this was something completely new. It made sense putting the driver next to the door because he could then supervise boarding whilst the conductor concentrated on collecting fares. It was also apparent that this design would be ideal for one-person-operation, should this ever become legal (as it did during the 1960's). 

So Leyland took advantage of the new length regulations and designed a front-entrance, rear-engined bus they called the Atlantean. It was launched at the 1958 Commercial Motor Show and it took the bus world by storm. It was like anything else on the road and operators weren’t slow to see its advantages, though it took some a while to figure out how to use them. One of the first to add the Atlantean to their fleet was Wallasey Corporation whose current buses would normally only seat around 60 passengers. Their new Atlanteans had seating for 77 so the corporation initially took the precaution of employing two conductors, one upstairs and the other downstairs, to cope with the numbers.

The revolutionary Leyland Atlantean

The Leyland Atlantean basically killed the traditional front-engined half-cab design overnight. Passengers clearly appreciated its new levels of comfort and were no longer happy to sit by a draughty open platform. Other manufacturers soon realised that their half-cab designs were now totally obsolete and they began work on their own rear-engined designs immediately. Only London Transport continued to build half-cabs, with their Routemaster staying in production until the mid-1960's.

The Atlantean was in production for an astonishing 28 years and it remains probably the most successful bus design ever. Look around you and even 50 years after its introduction its DNA is perceptible in virtually every double-decker on Britain's roads. My own journey is a case in point. Every one of the double deckers I have travelled on so far - with the exception of the 50 year old Harvey and the heritage Routemaster in London - has been a front entrance rear-engined bus almost identical to the original 1958 Atlantean. It's been improved over the years, but never bettered.

Buchanan Street Bus Station

Right now, there's dozens of them milling around in Buchanan Street bus station, mixing it with the single deckers and the coaches. I can't tell if they Titans or Atlanteans or Omnicitys, but who cares. It's quite a spectacle. With so many vast, slab-sided vehicles moving around this should be utter chaos but a cohort of stern, uniformed men with hi-vis tabards and shrill whistles adeptly guide each driver as they attempt to manoeuvre their charges in, out and around the bus station. With more arriving and departing every few seconds, it's a bit like watching someone choreographing a herd of elephants.

I'm not here to watch the buses, though, or even to catch one. I'm here to drop my bag off at Buchanan Street's high-tech Left Luggage facility so I can explore Glasgow unencumbered. I can then spend some of the morning poking around Glasgow Cathedral, which must be the only double-decker cathedral in the world, before climbing up to Glasgow's creepily picturesque Necropolis, a vast Victorian hilltop graveyard filled with elaborate Gothic gravestones with some of the grandest views across the city.

Buchanan Street interior

I'm taking my fill of sunshine now because I am about to disappear down into Glasgow's Subway, which has the distinction of being the world’s third oldest underground railway after London and Budapest. It's certainly one of the smallest, running along a circular line only 6 and a half miles in length through tunnels barely 3.5m in diameter. On a busy day, it feels a bit like being flushed down a sink. The carriages are cosy, too, which means you have to mind your head when you sit down for fear of banging it on the inside of the roof (like I did).

The Subway opened in 1896 and right from the start it was unique. Its tracks were narrower than normal and it was the only cable-operated underground railway in the world. Power was delivered via two continuous cables driven by massive stationary steam engines, The cables were kept running at a constant speed and each car had a 'gripper' which could clamp on to the cable to pull it along. It’s essentially the same system still in used today by the City of San Francisco for their street car system.

There were other odd features, too. There were no points or cross-overs, which meant trains could only ever go in one direction. This could cause major delays if a train broke down as it couldn’t be shunted out of the way into a siding. In fact, the only way to remove a train for repair was to hoist it out with a crane through a gap in the floor of the maintenance depot which was built, a little inconveniently, up on the surface.

The subway was popular but by 1923 its owner was in financial difficulty. It was then sold to Glasgow Corporation Tramways who changed its name from 'Subway' to 'Underground' and began making plans to convert it to from cable to electricity, a propulsion system they were more familiar with. Work began in 1935 converting first one direction to electricity then the other, which meant that through most of the year all the clockwise trains were cable-hauled whilst the anti-clockwise trains were electrically driven. The new power system would ultimately take ten minutes off the previous 38 minutes it took to complete a circuit.

I join the system at Buchanan Street, its largest and most central station. I'm soon heading under the Clyde to Shields Road, close to Scotland Street where the mighty steam engines which powered the Subway's cable were once housed. The engine house is long gone, but I get off anyway and cross the road to pay a visit to the exquisite Scotland Street School, designed by the Glasgow architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and now a museum of school life.

Originally, the Subway's 15 stations were built with island platforms. Nine of those remain, including Shields Road, and it can be slightly alarming the first time you use them. After climbing down a surprisingly short flight of stairs you find yourself standing on a narrow platform with electrified rails down either side and absolutely nothing to hold on to. There’s no wall to push back against, no seats, no bins, nothing. You just stand there trying not to feel like one of the ten green bottles standing on the wall and fervently hoping that nobody accidently jostles you. 

The system continued pretty much unchanged until the 1970’s, even down to using some of the original 19th century carriages. The dark green staff uniforms, which retained the black braided cuffs introduced at the time of the funeral of Queen Victoria, also harked back to an earlier age. By then, though, much of the railway’s trade had fallen away. Shipyard closures and widescale demolition of the tenements on the south bank of the Clyde had robbed the system of much of its business, and breakdowns with the now ancient carriages led to regular and unpopular delays. Soon, however, an altogether greater problem would manifest itself.

In March 1977, staff discovered large cracks in the roof of Govan Cross station, and services were suspended. A skeleton service resumed again in early May but within days yet more cracks were revealed and the whole system was hastily closed down. A major modernisation scheme had been scheduled to start in eight days time anyway, but this was now hurriedly brought forward.

Everything was upgraded, stations were rebuilt or refurbished, points were installed, railed access to the maintenance depot was at last achieved, and a brand new fleet of 33 subway cars was ordered. Strathclyde Passenger Transport, who now operated the system, decided to involve the Glasgow School of Art in the design of the new trains resulting in carriages that were attractive, slightly cute and painted bright orange - though officially this was called "Strathclyde PTE Red" due to orange’s troublesome sectarian connotations in Glasgow. Outsiders soon dubbed it 'The Clockwork Orange'.

When it closed in 1977, Glasgow’s Subway carried 7 million passengers a year but by 1996 that figure had doubled. Popular and successful, Glasgow’s Subway is also one of the few railways in the UK in public ownership and 'vertically integrated' with SPT responsible for both operation and infrastructure. And as far as I can tell, there are no other Underground systems in the world that have games closely associated – indeed, totally reliant - on their infrastructure. Glasgow's Subway has two, both of which are mostly enjoyed, its fair to say, by members of the city’s large student population. 

Subcrawl... it can get messy

The first is the Subcrawl, and you can probably guess what this one's about. It's simple. You buy an all-day Discovery ticket then get off at each of the 15 stations on the system and have a drink at the nearest bar. Given that two of the stations are some distance from the nearest pub, a certain amount of fitness is required, but that’s not the half of it. When travelling between stations, you are not allowed to sit down or hang on to supports, which after 12 or 13 drinks can be tricky. Subcrawls generally take a whole day, and you complete a crawl by having a final drink in the same pub you started in. Providing you don't end up in either a police cell or A&E, completing a Subcrawl is regarded as quite an achievement. Not as good as getting a First, perhaps, but close.

The second game is the Glasgow Subway Challenge. This is essentially a race of man against machine which takes advantage of the fact that the journey time between Buchanan Street and St. Enoch is approximately 55 seconds. To take part, you get off at Buchanan Street station, race up to the surface, sprint down the busiest shopping street in Glasgow and get back on the same train at its next stop, St. Enoch. In practice, the only way you can do this is by bike so you generally need a minimum of three other people to help – one to hold your bike at the top of the stairs at Buchanan Street, another to take it off you at St Enochs, and another to stay on the train to check you out and check you back in again. It’s difficult and not a little dangerous, but it can be done, as several YouTube videos testify.

Buchanan Street bus station

I arrive back at Buchanan Street but resist the temptation to sprint down to St Enochs. Instead, I make my way back to Buchanan Street Bus Station to collect my rucksack and make the 13.02 bus to Balfron. I have to confess I'd never heard of Balfron, a village which lies just to the north of the Campsie Fells beyond Glasgow's northern suburbs. However, it seems to hold the key to a quiet and more scenic route to Stirling which is where I am actually heading.

My single decker arrives and we are soon clambering up through Glasgow's dense northern suburbs and out among the green fields at the foot of the impressive Campsies. These are the same soft, rounded hills I saw tucked behind Glasgow's tower blocks yesterday from the top of my luxury double-decker coach but they look even more impressive close up.

I spot a signpost to the Antonine Wall, Britain's less well-known Roman Wall, before we arrive at Milngavie, a comfortable and leafy satellite of Glasgow which happens to be the site of one of the most eccentric and little-known experiments in British transport history - the George Bennie Railplane.

George was brought up surrounded by engineering as his father owned a successful hydraulic engineering company. It was soon clear that the son was intent on following his Dad into a career in engineering, even though he had little formal engineering training. He was clearly inventive, though. In 1911, George patented a system which allowed small boats to be moved in a realistic fashion on stage, and he patented several similar devices before the outbreak of war in 1914. He joined up and eventually became an aircraft fitter in the Royal Flying Corps.

Post-war and with an abiding interest in aircraft technology, George turned his mind to the problems faced by the railways. Passenger express trains, he noted, rarely topped 70mph because few steam trains where able to go much faster because slow goods trains would constantly get in their way. A huge quantity of heavy freight was carried by rail so express trains rarely got a clear run. If you separated the freight trains from the passenger trains, he reckoned, both would then benefit.

What he came up with was the Bennie Railplane, a monorail system which resembled a wingless aircraft suspended from an overhead gantry and powered by two aircraft engines turning huge propellers, one at the front and one at the back. Bennie had designed these huge steel gantries to run along existing railway lines which meant slow freight trains could rumble along at ground level while the express passengers would sweep along above them, suspended from an overhead rail in their cigar-shaped wingless aircraft .

Bennie had a hard job persuading people that such a concept might be a winner, though. Most of the railway companies who he felt would be the obvious beneficiaries had already put their efforts into the developing civil air industry and saw the Railplane concept as a blind alley. Only the London and North Eastern Railway, who had no aviation interests, were prepared to take a punt at Bennie's odd-looking concept. They agreed to erect a short test track above a goods siding which ran off the Glasgow to Milngarvie line and allow Bennie to realise his ambition of building a full-sized working railplane to run along it.

The Bennie Railplane makes a test run

On Saturday 4 July 1930, Bennie's railplane carried its first passengers - a group of journalists who would later wax lyrical about the carriage's thick carpets and easy chairs, and its smooth and quiet ride. There was initial interest from as far afield as Blackpool, Paris and Jerusalem, and a system linking Marble Arch in London with Croydon airfield was also proposed, but all came to nought. The system was just too radical and unproven. Eventually, having spent around £150,000 of his own money and with no sales, Bennie was declared bankrupt. He continued to pop up again from time to time, and in 1950 was found to be promoting a railplane linking Baghdad and Damascus as well as systems in Los Angeles and at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. Once again, none of them got off the ground. 

George Bennie died in a residential home in Epsom, Surrey in 1957 aged 65, having never seen his ambitions realised. His test track at Milngarvie had already been demolished by then, though the goods shed beneath it remains to this day as the headquarters of a timber merchant. Bennie has not been entirely forgotten, however. His name lives on in a commemorative plaque on a wall outside of Kelvin Timber's premises opposite a MacDonalds hamburger bar, marking the site of what was surely one of the strangest and most ambitious experiments in public transport.

I catch a quick glimpse of the plaque as we run quickly along Milngavie's Main Street, but we are soon out into the countryside again bowling along through the Blane Valley, a glen of rich and conventional beauty with steep, thickly-wooded slopes mellowing into wide flower-strewn meadows. It's lovely. No wonder the cows and sheep look so contented.

Glengoyne Distillery

The bus makes a quick stop at the Glengoyne Malt Whisky Distillery which straddles the boundary between Lowland Malt and Highland Malt whisky and within minutes we are arriving in Balfron. This is where I'm meant to get off and catch a bus to Stirling but the apparently linear village seems to go on and on and it's not at all clear just where I get off. I edge forward to ask the driver.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where to get off for the Stirling bus,” I ask.

“No problem,” he says. “We're going straight there.”

Oh. So the service 10 from Glasgow to Balfron has unexpectedly morphed without fanfare or indeed any official declaration into a bus going to Stirling. On reflection, the driver probably told me that he was going all the way to Stirling when I boarded and asked him for a through ticket, but I didn't notice.

Stirling

Anyway, I settle back once more as we sprint down the Forth Valley towards the fair city of Stirling, with its stately Wallace Monument and aggressive-looking castle outlined on its skyline. I really like Stirling. I'm not so keen on its shopping mall, onto which the bus station has been typically grafted, but I love its grey streets and its steep road up to the castle, and the old Stirling Gaol which has been brilliantly restored, and its Georgian youth hostel, and the tang of heather and ice in the air, its sheer unvarnished Scottishness. I love it.

This is probably the last bit of level ground I'm likely to stand on for a while. Pretty much everything north of here is big and mountainous and my next bus, the 59 from Stirling to Callander, will take me to the very entrance to the Scottish Highlands. Technically, the border line between what is generally referred to as the Highlands and the Lowlands is defined by the huge geological fault running south-west to north-east directly through The Trossachs (unless you are talking about whisky, that is). This is where I am spending the night in the pretty town of Callander, a short bus ride from Stirling along a flat grassy plain, past the sombre castle of Doune and into the steepening valley of the River Teith. 

My last bus of the day pulls over on Callender's arrow–straight High Street, and as I disembark I glance down the road to see the way apparently barred by dark and brooding mountains, seemingly obscuring the way I'm intending to head tomorrow.

I retire to bed excited, but with a sense that the most difficult part of my journey might just be about to begin.

NEXT: Callendar – Fort William - during which I am repeatedly pestered by a fellow passenger, ensuring I miss one of the greatest views in all Scotland, and then find myself stranded in a remote corner of Tayside.

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Map courtesy of those awfully nice people at Google