IT was the most stylish and up to date way to travel.

On its first day of opening, the Glasgow and District Subway attracted huge crowds desperate to see this most modern of transport systems.

Staff at St Enoch were overwhelmed by queues of curious Victorians keen to take a look at what was only the third underground in the world after London and Budapest.

But the opening day, December 14 1896, did not run exactly to plan.

Towards the end of the first day, a collision took place between Bridge Street and St Enoch and caused the Subway system to be out of service until January the following year.

Newspapers from the time say more than a dozen were injured but, fortunately, no one was killed.

The inauspicious start was not enough to put people off the Subway: it was warm, clean and quiet in comparison to horse-drawn trams and the Subway attracted more than 9.6million passengers in its first year.

Passengers were a varied lot - from the workers of the shipyards in Govan and Partick to the metropolitan types alighting at the Gothic-style St Enoch Subway station to catch the London train from St Enoch train station.

Carriages at the time were painted in crimson and cream livery, the colours of its private owners, and smoking was permitted in the rear carriage only.

For a one penny fare, travellers could ride around the city in 40 minutes, although the Subway operated only one carriage and this accommodated 42 people.

The 20 original carriages were built by the Oldbury Railway Carriage and Wagon Company, of Oldbury, Birmingham, England. Many continued in service until 1977.

Several more were built by Hurst Nelson & Company, Motherwell, Lanarkshire.

Glasgow Corporation bought over the Subway in 1922 and the carriages were repainted bright red - the colour of a London bus.

Before the system was electrified, in 1935, the trains were operated by a cable that pulled the carriages around the six-mile circuit of 15 stations.

Drivers were known as "gripmen" because they literally pulled the trains around the track using two wheels attached to a pulley system.

This is why each station is built on a slight rise - the incline helped the train to come in and the decline assisted on the way out.

The cable-hauled system was the first of its type in the world with propulsion provided by stationary steam engines. Also uniquely, the tunnels are very small - only 11ft in diameter and with the unusually small track gauge of four feet from rail-to-rail.

The tunnel depth varies as the Subway system moves around the city - from around 115ft under the River Clyde to just seven feet in places.

There were also no points – cars were lifted out of the tunnel by crane at the Car Sheds in Govan.

The Subway was always packed, particularly in the mornings and dinner time when shipyard workers commuted.

Following the Second World War, the Subway saw its busiest spell. From 1948 to 49, 37 million people used the underground - even though it had only two-carriage trains.

The war also saw one of the Subway's most dramatic moments. In September 1940 a German bomb landed on Beith Street bowling green, south of the old Merkland Street Subway station in Partick.

It exploded in the soft ground just above the outer circle tunnel. The subway was forced to close for 131 days to make repairs.

Fortunately there had been no trains travelling underneath when the bomb went off.

Another famous event in Subway history from that time was the tunnel flood in 1946 when a boat from Hogganfield Loch was used to transport staff through the network. The pumps used to remove water from the system had become completely overwhelmed.

In 1977 the carriages sported a new livery, bright orange, and earned the system the nickname The Clockwork Orange after the book by Anthony Burgess.

It was part of a complete makeover and upgrade that saw the system close for three years.

During the Beeching Axe - cuts to the network and restructuring of the railways in Great Britain in the 1960s - both St Enoch and Buchanan Street mainline stations were closed and demolished.

The Subway has had no direct passenger connection to the national railway network since, although a moving walkway was installed between Buchanan Street station and Queen Street Station as part of the 1970s upgrades.

Glasgow's Subway has remained fairly unchanged since that last refurbishment 40 years ago but everyone who uses the city's unique, shoogley underground system is looking forward to seeing what changes the next 40 years will bring.