ABSTRACT
Transport and tourism are intertwined; better transport feeds tourism, and tourism feeds transport improvement. Nineteenth-century writers, living as they were in an age of transport revolution, tended to regard the state of travel in the previous era as very difficult and restricted. In most minds and in many areas the railways are synonymous with the rise of tourism in Britain. To be served by rail made tourist resorts; to be bypassed was to be side lined. Tourism could make money for railway companies, and the summer takings, which reached their climax in August for the Highland Railway, for example, were what determined the year's profits. While the railways were to leech away some of the traffic to the coast, river and sea services was to remain vitally important to island tourism, and nowhere more than in the Clyde region. The annual exodus at the Glasgow Fair in July saw every boat, even some retired, pressed into holiday service.
