A Glasgow man has taken a seat from the city’s old Subway stock and upcycled it into a stunning piece.
Matt McCallum, 30, “jumped at the chance” to own a piece of the well-loved 1977 Subway stock after the trains were pulled from service in June 2024. He came across the seat on Facebook Marketplace.
“I saw it and I thought it was amazing,” said Matt. “It was around the time they were bringing in the new Subway cars.
“It’s nice fabric with a nice texture and a nice pattern and colour. It’s a shame that they were going. I jumped at the chance and thought I’d get it and figure out what to do with it later.”
Architect Matt toyed with turning the seat into a dining bench or booth, before seeing a piece of IKEA furniture that would suit the Subway seat perfectly. The Subway seat sat under a window in Matt’s spare room while he waited patiently for an example of the mid-century wood-framed bench to come up second-hand.
Matt “jumped at the chance” to own a piece of the city’s history.
(Image: Matt McCallum)
“I think a lot of people are fans [of the old Subway carriages], but I don’t think many people realised that until they started taking them out,” said Matt.
The stunning bench now lives in Matt’s Merchant City living room. The Subway chair is Matt’s most complex interior design project yet, as he explains: “I’ve done little bits and pieces, but nothing like taking something that doesn’t work and building it up like this before.”
Matt borrowed his mum’s carpet cleaner to get fifty years of underground grime out of the seat. “I expected the water to come out black, but even after the first pass it just didn’t look good. I think that’s why the patterns are designed the way they are, they disguise the dirt, and it didn’t look dirty.
“Occasionally after picking it up I’d find a bit of black soot on my hands. I had never really appreciated this, but you can see how the seats fix into the Subway and that the seat covers come off, so you could take it off and replace or clean it.”
Unfortunately for the rest of us, the unique piece is not up for sale, with Matt intending for it to be a feature of his living room for years to come. He said: “It’s going to get a lot less traffic in the living room than it did on the Subway, so a good clean now and it’ll be fine.”
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