The separate Glasgow Subway system is the fourth oldest in the world (after these two, and one in Budapest, which opened a few months before it).

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This allowed existing railway lines leading east and west out of Glasgow to be connected to the city centre for the first time. The line opened on the 15th of March 1886 (a decade before the city's subway), and is still in operation to this day.

This makes it the world's second oldest underground railway (after the Metropolitan District Railway, which opened in London in 1863 and is now part of the London Underground).

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This incline was so steep that the locomotives of the day could not climb it, and until the early 1900s, they were hauled up it using a rope attached to a stationary steam engine at Cowlairs. So, why did they go to all this trouble and expense when there were undoubtly easier options available? Well, this goes back to the railway line's major competitor, the Forth and Clyde Canal.

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