Colin J. Howat explores the fascinating history of Ayrshire traction.

Colin J. Howat looks at traction around Scotland.

“Waller dips successfully into the social history north of the border during the first half of the twentieth century, when trams were the urban transport kings.” —Evergreen Focusing on Scotland, this book provides an overview of the history of tramways north of the border from the 1940s, when the first horse-drawn service linking Inchture village to Inchture station opened, through to the closure of the last traditional tramway—Glasgow—in 1962. Concentrating on the big city systems that survived the Second World War—Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow—the book provides a comprehensive narrative, detailing the history of these operations from 1945 onwards, with full fleet lists, maps, and details of route openings and closures. The story is supported by some 200 illustrations, both colour and black and white, many of which have never been published before, that portray the trams that operated in these cities and the routes on which they operated. Bringing the story up-to-date, the book also examines the only second-generation tramway yet to be built in Scotland—the controversial system recently constructed in Edinburgh—as well as informing readers where it is still possible to see Scotland’s surviving first-generation trams in preservation. “An outstanding book . . . To leaf through the pages of this book is therefore to take a journey back in time, to an era that can now be remembered by a diminishing number of people. To see that era brought to life in such a vivid and immediate way is a real joy . . . a superbly researched history of trams in Scotland.” —Undiscovered Scotland

In the early 1800s, Ayrshire was already established as a prosperous, mainly rural agricultural county. The realization that there was abundant coal and (to a lesser extent) iron ore deposits to be exploited, together with the coming of the Industrial Revolution, rendered the area wide open to the 'railway mania' that swept Britain in the mid to late 1800s. The proximity of the county north to Glasgow and south to Carlisle (and thence south) made it an attractive proposition for early railway developers. Gordon Thomson explores the history and development of the railway routes in Ayrshire; how the coming of the railways changed the face of the area and supported the growth of industry. It looks at how services evolved through the eras of LMS, nationalization and privatization, and the preservation and heritage scene in Ayrshire. Superbly illustrated with 273 colour and black & white photographs.