Clockwork Orange

Today I finally managed to get a ride on a Clockwork Orange!

I was in Glasgow to visit someone near Charing Cross. I decided to travel on the train since Linlithgow is just beyond the Western edge of our parish, close to where I would be working this morning, and conveniently situated on the main Edinburgh-Glasgow rail line.

Arriving at Queen Street station, and not being very familiar with Glasgow, I was rather uncertain about getting the bus. It's not so easy to decide if you're at the right stop as with some other forms of transport.

I thought it might be an opportunity to travel on Scotland's only Underground Passenger Transport system - since I'd never been on it before. I had a look on a map board and figured that St. George's Cross would be the nearest stop, and not too far to walk, although only two stops down the line.

So I followed the signs to the Underground Station, which was not far, paid my £1.10, and headed down to the platform.

The stations and trains are all rather small compared with other Underground systems I have been on. But being rather small myself this was no problem, and in any case there was plenty of headroom on the trains.

My outbound journey was on the Anti-clockwise line, and I returned back to Queen Street mainline station on the Clockwise line. With an underground train every 6 minutes I didn't have long to wait and it all worked rather well.

The trains still retain elements of their original Orange livery which led to the subway's nickname of the Clockwork Orange (with the size probably also being a factor). I was intrigued that the Clockwork Orange had Clockwise and Anti-clockwise lines. Despite the names, however, they all run off electricity and not clockwork mechanisms!

The system works well. I must figure out how the Underground network compares with the above-ground city to find out where it goes and on which occasions it might be useful in the future.

Today it all went like Clockwork!