Glasgow Subway - did anyone ever call it the Clockwork Orange?

[matchmaker]

As per the thread title. I, a born and bred Glaswegian never called it anything other than the Subway, even when the trains were orange. However does anyone call it the Clockwork Orange nowadays?

 

[Buzby]

Neither the staff, travellers or local population ever called it that - primarily because the carriages were originally Brown/Cream, then latterly in the G1 service (prior to closure for refurbishment) the carriages were very clearly red. The derogatory term seemed to arise shortly after the Stanley Kubrick film arrived in the town, around 1971. Supposedly it was named by a journalist in a throwaway line in his copy.

When SPT took over the service from Glasgow Corporation Transport and GGPTE, they ran a competition for colour of the new carriages, silver with a green/yellow stripe along the side, or ‘Strathclyde Orange’ which was the corporate colour scheme and that prevailed. Nobody - with the possible exception of visitors or tourists ever called it that, and probably never will with the new G3 carriages not even being that colour!

 

[Tetchytyke]

The trains were never orange, they were Strathclyde Red

Never seen or heard it called the Clockwork Orange, but have heard it called the shoogle.

 

[Geeves]

A quick google search for "Glasgow Subway Clockwork orange" brings up plenty of results including the Wikipedia page so it cant be that unknown.

As a memory going to the transport museum as a kid on holiday in Glasgow was always a special treat. I am sure it was mentioned in there.

 

[Buzby]

As a memory going to the transport museum as a kid on holiday in Glasgow was always a special treat. I am sure it was mentioned in there.

Perhaps later (rewriting history?) but at the Albert Drive Museum, it wasn’t mentioned earlier (as this pre-dated the Burgess book. As for Wiki, really? Everyone loves a lazy anecdote but the locals don’t use it either lovingly or disparagingly!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A quick search on the 'British Newspaper Archive' does show a handful of press articles in the 1980s/1990s, which refer to the Glasgow subway / underground system's nickname as being the "Clockwork Orange". Not all that many mind you to suggest it was common parlance. First mention(s) that I could find was/were in October/November 1979, which I think was around the date that Queen Elizabeth visited to officially open the refurbished system.

 

[AndrewE]

Portillo's visit to Glasgow was re-broadcast recently, and he specifically commented on that name in it.

As a memory going to the transport museum as a kid on holiday in Glasgow was always a special treat. I am sure it was mentioned in there.

The old transport museum had part of a car as an exhibit and I'm very glad it is now in the new one. What it can't show is the flexible nature of the cars, which distorted continuously when I rode it just before it closed for renovation. The wedge-shaped wood sections at the tops of the cars' internal partitions were held in place by a hook and eye at each end and you could see the cracks opening and closing every time the car swayed!

 

[David M]

The press and media started suggesting Clockwork Orange after the modernisation in the late 1970s but I have never used it myself nor met any Glaswegian who used it. It was always the subway (and always will be!).

 

[trei2k]

I agree, as a local, I only hear people from outside of Glasgow mention it.

 

[Taunton]

The old transport museum had part of a car as an exhibit and I'm very glad it is now in the new one. What it can't show is the flexible nature of the cars, which distorted continuously when I rode it just before it closed for renovation. The wedge-shaped wood sections at the tops of the cars' internal partitions were held in place by a hook and eye at each end and you could see the cracks opening and closing every time the car swayed!

I used to wonder while rumbling along if the glass ever fell out ...

 

[AM9]

In 1987 I did the Glasgow Subway circuit whilst visiting there with my son.

We were amused by the tiny trains that popped out their tunnels at eye level, - a miniature of the deep Tube running in a circle and between ourselves, we likened it to a clockwork trainset that was orange and called the 'clockwork orange'. Soon after we found that it was already sometimes referred to as the clockwork orange, - that was just co-incidence but we thought it was a rather obvious nickname anyway.

It's no worse than calling all of the London Underground the 'Tube', even though the SSLs aren't, and the Chicago 'L' (for elevated) despite much of it being at surface grade or underground.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Sunday at 08:57 ==

The press and media started suggesting Clockwork Orange after the modernisation in the late 1970s but I have never used it myself nor met any Glaswegian who used it. It was always the subway (and always will be!).

But for those used to more complex metropolitan subterranean rail systems, its simplicity of an unbroken circle will always encourage comparison with a clockwork trainset.

 

[Buzby]

will always encourage comparison with a clockwork trainset.

Which it wouldn’t to a local populace! In the scale of things it was as big as it needed to be to do the job, at a cost the promoters were prepared to pay. Since the phrase remained unknown until the release of the Anthony Burgess book, it was clearly a hackneyed and disparaging comment and unoriginal to be echoed by subsequent visitors/media bods searching for a ’hook’.

In 2026, it is neither clockwork nor orange and the book and film the phrase came from is long gone. Anyone aged 20-30 would be hard-pressed to see or make the connection, and fortunately it will die a deserved death - it remains the Glasgow Subway and for a very short period being called the ‘Underground’ but nobody called it that either.

 

[AM9]

Which it wouldn’t to a local populace! In the scale of things it was as big as it needed to be to do the job, at a cost the promoters were prepared to pay. Since the phrase remained unknown until the release of the Anthony Burgess book, it was clearly a hackneyed and disparaging comment and unoriginal to be echoed by subsequent visitors/media bods searching for a ’hook’.

In 2026, it is neither clockwork nor orange and the book and film the phrase came from is long gone. Anyone aged 20-30 would be hard-pressed to see or make the connection, and fortunately it will die a deserved death - it remains the Glasgow Subway and for a very short period being called the ‘Underground’ but nobody called it that either.

I found it:

a) quaint​

b) interesting​

c) efficient and convenient.​

I've always liked Glasgow and the Glaswegians that I've met, but I can't understand why a few here are so precious about what their metro is called by others.

 

[Buzby]

It’s when it’s mis-represented. All your plus points are valid, as for the name - I’m quite proud of it (and its faults) but as an ex-journo hate how this lazy and inaccurate nomenclature is suggested by some who see the term as being locally knowledgeable when it’s entirely the opposite!

I’ve also heard it called the ‘misery line’ where one circle is suspended and everyone is crammed on to the other… but hasn’t that been used elsewhere in the SE?

 

[AM9]

It’s when it’s mis-represented. All your plus points are valid, as for the name - I’m quite proud of it (and its faults) but as an ex-journo hate how this lazy and inaccurate nomenclature is suggested by some who see the term as being locally knowledgeable when it’s entirely the opposite!

I’ve also heard it called the ‘misery line’ where one circle is suspended and everyone is crammed on to the other… but hasn’t that been used elsewhere in the SE?

Yes many times. 'Misery Line' is usually trotted out by local newspapers giving column inches to commuters complaining about 'their' route into London. I've often thought that these complainers live in a bubble where problems on other lines can be fare worse but they just don't notice.

As far as nicknames for lines go, I'm quite happy to use them where they slip into normal conversation better than their official name. For example, when Sadiq Khan officially named Crossrail as The Elizabeth Line, my immediate reaction was that a four syllable name needed something shorter for locals. As a Londoner, I started to call it the 'Lizzie' both on RUK posts and conversationally. After a couple of years it seems that others are doing the same so it must be OK for some locals.*

Also established name don't need to non=flattering, e.g The Drain, - no doubt others down south have pet names.

* the lizzie has transformed travel for Thameslink passengers where places such as Stratford, Custom House (for the Excel centre, the West End (Bond Street), Paddington and Heathrow are much easier to reach.

 

[Scotty Dog]

It's just yet another name conjured up by outsiders, usually from South of the Border in the same way they have always called classes 25, 26 and 27 'McRats'.

No-one in Scotland ever coined or used that phrase for them.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

The trains were never orange, they were Strathclyde Red

Weren't the trains previously light orange (with a distinctive white stripe) in the late 1970s/early 1980s, before the shade was then subsequently darkened to 'Strathclyde Red'?

 

[Buzby]

Weren't the trains previously light orange (with a distinctive white stripe) in the late 1970s/early 1980s

There was a proposed colour scheme that used this, I think it was on a wooden mock up from Metro Cammell and on display in the Design Museum as a ‘vision of the future’ along with the suggested variants of shiny silver with a green/yellow stripe (like the buses) and the all orange (euphemistically called Strathclyde red) and the public was asked to vote on it (on postcards!).

The rival religious tensions/colours embodied on trams & buses (Green/Orange) was seen as pleasing both camps, so when Orange became the primary colour, they claimed it was ‘Red’ so not to alienate those who hated everything Orange. There’s not that much difference in the tonal shift without going into Pantone codes, but a look at vintage buses showed the tonal shift across the years.

 

[gingerheid]

I never heard it called that by anyone at all anywhere ever, except in the media. Absolutely everyone I knew called it either the subway or, less frequently, the underground.

 

[alxndr]

it remains the Glasgow Subway and for a very short period being called the ‘Underground’ but nobody called it that either.

I did actually hear someone say “when I worked on the underground…” the other day, which is the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to it as that aside from tourists more familiar with London. As far as I’m aware he’s a native Glaswegian. He did then correct himself to “Subway”.

Agree that I’ve never heard anyone call it the Clockwork Orange aside from people trying to be twee in articles.

 

[Mag_seven]

Just before it reopened in 1979 I listened to a radio documentary where it was claimed that the Glasgow public had, and I quote, "already nicknamed it The Clockwork Orange".

 

[Falcon1200]

Always known as the Subway in my 42 years in Glasgow!

 

[Big M]

Always known as the Subway in my 42 years in Glasgow!

Such a shame about this thread. I thought A Clockwork Orange was quite a nice original romantic title. Pity it’s not authentic. Another bubble burst!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I thought A Clockwork Orange was quite a nice original romantic title. Pity it’s not authentic. Another bubble burst!

A soubriquet essentially invented by the media, which, in relation to the Glasgow Underground / Subway, can indeed be traced back to the late 1970s. Just never adopted by the local populace.

 

[matchmaker]

I used to wonder while rumbling along if the glass ever fell out ...

As a kid I was fascinated to watch the body flexing as we rattled through the tunnels at a terrifying (okay, about 25mph!) speed. Of course, the coaches were already nearly 70 years old by then. We always called it the Subway, although Glasgow Corporation tried renaming it The Underground in 1936. This was generally ignored...

 

[Taunton]

The Glasgow Underground until 1977 was I felt the nearest thing to the old Glasgow trams one could still get to. The speeds and body construction seemed comparable, possibly the sounds as well including the air brake hiss, and the uniformed staff, mostly seeming near retirement, were I understand principally those who transferred from the trams when they finished in 1962 and didn't care for handling buses. When the new trains came along in 1979 there seemed a new set of staff.

 

[AM9]

So the answer to the question posed in the title of this thread is - yes, but the locals don't seem to like it, even though it is part of a public transport system.

 

[Buzby]

When I review these pictures, the first sense I have activated is smell! I loved smell of the grease, DC motors and the tunnels (pushed through by the piston effect). This seems such a long way from the G1 experience!! The station exterior is of Shields Road, originally the ground floor of a 4 storey tenement. It was later replaced by a a brutalist concrete monstrosity.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:34 ==

though it is part of a public transport system.

The point being made was that the public don’t call it that. Just desperate journo’s filling copy.

 

[AM9]

The point being made was that the public don’t call it that. Just desperate journo’s filling copy.

You are missing the point here, there are members of the public outside the subway's catchment area, and (you should be flattered here) that public that has actuallty seen and maybe ridden on the trains, have also called the line the clockwork orange.
Strange, I never thought that Glasgow people were this isolationist and precious about the nickname of their trains.
Maybe I'm wrong and the hostility is just among a few RUK members.

 

[Buzby]

Maybe I'm wrong and the hostility is just among a few RUK members.

Well, I live here and never heard ‘the public’ refer to it this way. How this equates to being ‘isolationist’ is a big stretch - it’s a reaction to an artificial and lazy trope by media, with 50% accuracy, (orange, but not clockwork) it opened in 1876 and ran until 1935 cable hauled, then electric until 1977.

For those 101 years it was called the Subway, not a clockwork anything. Reopening in 1980 with G2 vehicles and the media hauled out the lazy trope before it replaced those G2 trains in 2023, they only lasted 43 years - when compared to the G1 sets. I much prefer the original heritage - not the much later media trope. If the St Albans Abbey Line was created, journos demeaned it with a stupid moniker, would you be so sanguine?