The George H Robin Collection
A collection of photographs of railway subjects in Scotland.
About George H Robin
George H Robin was a collector of photographs of trains and railway subjects. This collection was given to the library partly by him, and by his son after his death.
About the collection
Number 1103, Perth 16 June 1951, Perth - Dundee (West) Line
The photographs are mainly in-service shots of trains, but stations are also featured as well as junctions and signal boxes. Many images show rail activity in Glasgow and the surrounding area but there are also numerous images of rural lines, many of which are now abandoned, throughout Scotland. The collection does not cover the whole of Scotland, but the Great North of Scotland lines (excluding the Speyside branch) and Glasgow and South Western lines are particularly well covered.
Many of the small rural lines depicted in the collection were closed in 1963 as a result of the recommendations of The Beeching Report. Dr Richard Beeching was recruited by the then Conservative Government to find a way to make Britain's railways profitable. His report, entitled The Reshaping of British Railways (1963), put forward a simple solution - close down the bits that were losing money. Small branch lines would be replaced by improved bus services freeing up British Railways to concentrate on fast journeys between cities. 5,000 miles of track, 100s of branch lines 2,363 stations and tens of thousands of jobs were axed as a result.
Finding aid
Number 21, Eglinton Street, 14 June 1948, Cathcart Circle Line
Further reading
North British Locomotive Collection
Glasgow Central Railway Collection
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