#shoogle

[gazgouk]

St Enochs Reflection by Gaz T Via Flickr: Newly revamped entry to the St Enochs Station of the Glasgow Subway

[rachaelcsmith92-blog]

Totally smitten with this wee chap! Congratulations Kayleigh he is perfection 👶🙈 #beautiful #newborn #3rdcousin #baby #broody #iwantone #cuddles #shoogle #proud

[audiogear]

Shoogle Studios, Glasgow

[girlinspace919]

Sometimes the Glasgow Subway twitter is great.

[shoogleshoogleshoogle]

Buchanan Street Station

[oldglasgow]

Merkland Street: The Subway Station You Never Knew Existed

Opened in 1896, Glasgow's Subway is the third oldest in the world after Budapest and those pesky Londoners. Its history is surprisingly varied for a transport system which runs in a circle.

People who turned out for the opening of the Subway on 14th December 1896 queued patiently to get on the trains and it's thought that almost fifteen hundred people used the Subway within the first few hours of it being open.

An often overlooked fact is that the Subway system closed that day and didn't reopen until 21st January 1897. At the end of the day on 14th December, a collision between two trains under the Clyde between St Enoch and Bridge Street knocked the system out of action. According to contemporary newspaper reports, no-one was killed in the collision but that more than a dozen passengers were injured.

It isn't known why it took so long to get the Subway back up and running but an educated guess would suggest that the location of the crash and the relative inexperience of the authorities in dealing with such events meant that they needed to take their time. It should also be remembered that there was only one way to get the rolling stock (or trains as we'll now be calling them) out of the system and that was situated between Govan & Ibrox (or Copland Road as it was known then). 

Subsequently the system ran on its cable-pulled system until it was eventually electrified in 1935. The Subway underwent major modernisation for the first time in 1977 and most of the trains being used up until that time were the ones which had first begun rolling around the Shoogle system in December 1896. 

Most people will be aware that most of the stations were completely altered with rebuilt entrances like the one at Kelvinbridge which replaced the former entrance (now a t-shirt printing shop) and the one at Ibrox which replaced the unassuming Copland Road station. In fact, Cessnock is the only station on the route which retains its pre-modernisation frontage.

Much less is known of Merkland Street, the little station that couldn't. As you can see on the map from the mid-1950s, Merkland Street station used to occupy the space that Partick now holds. However, unlike Copland Road which was merely renamed Ibrox to widen the Subway's appeal to football fans, Merkland Street was completely removed as part of the modernisation.

The photos show the old Merkland Street entrance which was situated around 50m away from where the modern entrance to Partick Station is. The reasons for building a new station were simple: they wanted to create a transport hub to make the connection between the Subway and the suburban rail route easier. Merkland St was just too far away to be practical so it was closed. I've marked on a Google Map Screenshot the approximate site of the station.

As well as the old photos of the station, I've included a photo of Merkland Street as it appears today, completely stripped out with metal fences marking the area where the platform once stood. The darker patch in the middle of the far wall is where the stairs would have come down to the platform and the light coming through the tunnel is the platform of Partick Subway Station. Those with keen eyesight might be able to catch a glimpse of it as they pass.

Merkland Street was bombed in World War II when a German bomb (meant for the adjacent Meadowside Shipyard) passed through the soft earth of a Bowling Green on Beith Street and exploded either on or inside the tunnel. This put the Subway system out of action for 131 days while repairs were carried out.

The tunnel image shows the extent of the damage where the tunnel suddenly turns from cast iron cladding to brick.

So there you have it, the only station on the Glasgow Subway which no longer exists. It lived on in the old Transport Museum as much of the period equipment on display had been salvaged from Merkland Street however, with the move to the Riverside museum I can't be completely sure they've reproduced it.

Fancy seeing it as it was? Check out this Youtube preview of The (Old) Glasgow Subway made by Glasgow University & Strathclyde University.

Alternatively if you'd prefer a more alarmist and surreal history of the Subway, why not check out the "work" of the Psychogeographical Commission?

Image Sources (Row-by-row L-R):

[1] An advertisement for the Glasgow District Subway, c 1900. (Source: Museum of Transport/The Glasgow Story) [2] The Glasgow Subway map today. (Source: SPT) [3] 1950s Subway map. (Source: Glasgow Transport Memorabilia) [4] The station’s exterior. (Source: George Watson/Robert Clark/Subterranea Britannica) [5] The station’s ticket office. (Source: George Watson/Robert Clark/Subterranea Britannica) [6] A view down to the platform of the station. (Source: George Watson/Robert Clark/Subterranea Britannica) [7] The original Merkland Street location shown on a modern map. (Source: Google Imaging)

Old Glasgow: Facebook | Twitter | Map | Any Questions?

[shoogleshoogleshoogle]

Project Shoogle HQ

[shoogleshoogleshoogle]

Buchanan Street subway (Queen Street entrance)