Glasgow is unique among British cities in that it has the largest rail network outside of London, and there was once a time when the city had four very grand stations - Central, Queen Street, St Enoch's and Buchanan Street. Two of these have gone and with them the heyday of the city's railways. Those times are captured for us in this collection of fifty-two photographs, accompanied by a history of each of the city's lines. The neighbouring region of Dunbartonshire is also covered and was itself unique in that Milngavie was the home of one of the world's first monorail systems. Stations featured in the book - many of them long gone - include Cowlairs, Possilpark, Eglinton Street, Buchanan Street, Dalmuir Riverside, Stobcross, Bellahouston, Summerston, Maryhill Central, St Enoch's, Partick West, Cumberland Street, the Singer Terminal (Clydebank), Rutherglen and Strathbungo.

How would your career, social life, family ties, carbon footprint and mental health be affected if you could not leave the city where you live? Artist Ellie Harrison sparked a fast-and-furious debate about class, capitalism, art, education and much more, when news of her year-long project The Glasgow Effect went viral at the start of 2016. Named after the term used to describe Glasgow's mysteriously poor public health and funded to the tune of £15,000 by Creative Scotland, this controversial 'durational performance' centred on a simple proposition – that the artist would refuse to travel beyond Glasgow's city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for a whole calendar year.

The West Highland Railway, which opened to Fort William in 1894 and to Mallaig in 1901, follows a scenic route by Loch Lomond, Breadalbane and Lochaber to the west coast of Scotland and is one of the most famous railway lines in the world. This book describes the late-nineteenth-century 'railway mania' in the Highlands, addressing the politics of promotion and the disputes over state assistance for the Fort William–Mallaig line, rather than the heroics and the romance of construction and operation. It discusses the uneasy alliances and battles between the railway companies of Scotland, as well as those between Scottish lines and their English counterparts. It also reviews other schemes, more or less successful, and examines the expectations bound up with railway development, asking how far these had been achieved, or remained relevant, by 1914. 'This is a meticulously researched book . . . a unique and comprehensive history of the origins of the West Highland Railway . . . an essential addition to the library of anyone with an interest in Scottish railway history' - Ewan Crawford, University of Glasgow 'a fascinating and revealing study of rail development issues in the western Highlands between the 1840s and 1914' - Tom Hart, University of Glasgow