1896Dec, 14
The Glasgow Underground Railway is opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company.
The Glasgow Subway is an underground light metro system in Glasgow, Scotland. Opened on 14 December 1896, it is the third-oldest underground rail transit system in the world after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro. It is also one of the very few railways in the world with a track running gauge of 4 ft (1,219 mm) wide. Originally a cable railway, the subway was later electrified, but the double-track circular line was never expanded. The line was originally known as the Glasgow District Subway, and was later renamed Glasgow Subway Railway. In 1936 it was renamed the Glasgow Underground. Despite this rebranding, many Glaswegians continued to refer to the network as "the Subway". In 2003, the name "Subway" was officially readopted by its operator, the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT). A £40,000 study examining the feasibility of an expansion into the city's south side was conducted in 2005 while a further commitment from Labour in 2007 to extend to the East End was also to no avail.The system is not the oldest underground railway in Glasgow: that distinction belongs to a three-mile (five-kilometre) section of the Glasgow City and District Railway opened in 1886, now part of the North Clyde Line of the suburban railway network, which runs in a tunnel under the city centre between High Street and west of Charing Cross. Another major section of underground suburban railway line in Glasgow is the Argyle Line, which was formerly part of the Glasgow Central Railway.
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Events on 1896
- 28Jan
Speed limit
Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined one shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h). - 26May
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. - 16Aug
Klondike Gold Rush
Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discover gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush. - 21Sep
Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Mahdist War: British forces under the command of Horatio Kitchener takes Dongola in the Sudan. - 22Sep
George III of the United Kingdom
Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.