A GO-SLOW by some 200,000 rail workers across Britain in April 1972, in pursuit of a pay claim, caused widespread disruption.
The photograph above was taken at Glasgow's Central Station on Monday, April 17. The industrial action had begun at midnight on Sunday.
“Thousands of rail commuters face a difficult journey home tonight as the go-slow ... begins to cause widespread cancellations and delays to Scottish trains – and also endangers road services,” reported the Evening Times. It quoted a British Rail spokesman as saying: “What makes it so difficult is the fact that the situation is changing from hour to hour, and all we can say is that we are hopeful that everyone can get a train”.
This was a period of much industrial strife on this and other fronts: news of it dominated the front page of this newspaper (and, of course, every other paper) for days at a time. On April 19 the Heath government’s National Industrial Relations Court ordered the three rail unions to start working normally again, as soon as possible, for the next 14 days; the pay issue, however, was far from settled, and the work-to-rule flared up again, briefly, in May. The dispute was settled, as Heath himself records, on June 12 with a 13 per cent deal, five per cent ahead of inflation.
There was a happier story at Central Station on May 3, when Agnes Kelly and Cathy Clark, resplendent in the fashions of the time (main image), tried out a new ticket examination and collection system.
Described as the first of its kind in Europe, the system was installed at 19 stations on the Glasgow to Gourock and Wemyss Bay line as a pilot scheme. Passengers could buy tickets for one, two, 10, 20 or 50 journeys for use at any time, with no time limit. Entry to platforms would be through the automatic turnstile barriers only.
Read more: Herald Diary
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here