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EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW COACHES

Passengers between Edinburgh and Glasgow before the days of railways had a choice of two routes, either by road or by canal. As far back as the summer of 1678, an Edinburgh merchant set up a stage-coach between the two cities to carry six passengers, but it appears to have had no success. In 1743, another Edinburgh merchant offered to start a stage-coach on the same route with six horses, to hold six passengers, to go twice a week in summer and once in winter. But his proposal does not appear to have met with adequate support. At last, in 1749, a kind of covered spring-cart, known as the ‘Edinburgh and Glasgow Caravan,’ was put upon the road and performed the journey of forty-four miles in two days. Nine years later, in 1758, the ‘Fly,’ so called on account of its remarkable speed, actually accomplished the distance in twelve hours. The establishment of Palmer’s improved stage-coaches led to a further advance in the communications between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but it was not until 1799 that the time taken in the journey was reduced to six hours. In my boyhood, before the stage-coaches were driven off by the railway, various improvements on the roads, the carriages, and the arrangements connected with the horses, had brought down the time to no more than four hours and a half.3