Tram crash, Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, 1938

ALEX BURNS

IN THE aftermath of this crash between a tram and a bus at Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens, the man in the front of the picture doesn’t look too pleased to see a photographer. Perhaps he was one of the drivers – fearing a dressing down at the depot. The cause of the crash isn’t clear, but the passengers of the number 3 bus probably didn’t manage to get to their destination in time given the battering that their top deck suffered.

Taken in September 1938, when the Botanic Gardens had its own railway station, part of an underground line that included a station at Kelvinbridge (near where the subway now stands). Known as the Glasgow Central Railway, it ran north from Stobcross and continued west beneath the Botanic Gardens on its way to Maryhill. The Botanic station closed in 1939, and the ticket building was later occupied by a shop, cafe and nightclub before it burned down in 1970.

The trams, too, were not destined to last, being gradually phased out in favour of buses between 1956 and 1962. On the day of final tram’s journey in September 1962, around a quarter of a million Glaswegians took to the streets to bid farewell to their double-deckered institution. The procession passed through Argyle Street, Hope Street, and Renfield Street to the Coplawhill Car Works in Pollokshields – where there was said to be “not a dry eye in the house”.