REGULAR contributor to The Irish Voice, Hugh Dougherty, tells the story of Glasgow’s Silent Service, the city’s trolleybuses, in a new book on the electric buses which ran from 1949 to 1967.
Hugh travelled by trolley to school at St Aloysius College each day from 1962 to 1967 and kept records of his journeys and incidents, as he became fascinated by the trolleys,
and went on as a teenager to photograph them.
Many conductors, clippies and drivers came from Donegal, as Hampden Garage was close to the Gorbals and Govanhill, the traditional homes of the diaspora in the trolleybus era, and Hugh struck up a friendship with Joe Doherty from Rathmullen, the regular conductor on his run home from school.
Joe encouraged Hugh to visit Hampden Garage to see behind the scenes, and, thanks to a helpful depot shunter—also from Donegal—the young Hugh was allowed to drive trolleys around the open-air trolley garage under strict supervision!
Joe, who also owned a farm back home, was a mine of information on the trolleybuses and wore his green, Glasgow Corporation Transport uniform with pride, as part of the Hampden Donegal community.
The role of Glasgow Corporation Transport in employing Irish Catholics without prejudice—unlike many employers in the 1950s and 60s—can’t be overemphasised in helping the community put down roots, thanks to a secure, decently-paid, pensionable job.
Many Donegal staff went on to follow life-long careers on the buses, with their children benefitting from the free education of the 1970s, to go on into professions, based on the security of their parents’ work on the buses.
In the book—illustrated with the pictures Hugh took in the 1960s—there are plenty of anecdotes about what it was like to travel on the trolleys in a very different Glasgow from today. One records a spectacular piece of street theatre in 1965, when an Orange band’s mace melted on the trolleybus wires, with an impressive display of red, white and blue sparks, when it was thrown too high above the band on the city’s Victoria Road during an Orange walk.
And, Hugh recalls Rangers supporters from Belfast, giving the vicky to the green-white-and-orange painted trolleybuses, as they associated them with Irish tricolours, as opposed to Belfast’s own trolleys, which were painted in a safely-neutral combination of red and cream. Local Rangers fans didn’t seem bothered and took the tricolour trolleys to Ibrox Park without prejudice!
Seventy-three year-old Hugh has written the book to recall the days of the trolleybuses, initially dubbed ‘silent death’ by Glaswegians, because they were noiseless, compared with trams and diesel buses. But, he says, cities like Glasgow need to take another look at the trolleybus.
“Trolleybuses are silent and pollution-free, the very benefits we look for today on city streets, yet they were scrapped to make way for motorways and cars in Glasgow in 1967,” he said. “Cities such as Salzburg and Vancouver, have kept faith with the trolleybus, and are developing and expanding their systems. They recognise that trolleybuses, taking their power from overhead wires, are lighter and more efficient than battery buses, which have range issues and need expensive battery replacements after a few years in service. It’s time to bring back the trolleybus. They would be just the ticket.”
Trolleybuses Glasgow Silent Service is available from www.stenlake.co.uk at £12.95 and from all good bookshops
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