TRANSPORT has been the making of Swindon - from canals and trams, through to trains, planes and automobiles, it has always been a town of making and moving.

The 52-mile long Wilts and Berks Canal opened in 1810, providing a connection between the Kennet and Avon Canal and the River Thames. In Swindon, the canal allowed the quarries in Old Town and the timber yard at Rushey Platt to transport goods to other towns and cities.

The arrival of Brunel’s Great Western Railway marked the beginning of the transformation of a once quiet market town into the diverse and thriving technology hub we know today - and the building of the M4, which opened in 1971, marked another revolution in the way we travel, live and work, with a huge impact on the on-going evolution of the town.

These stories and more are investigated in an exhibition at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, called Transport: Seven Swindon Stories,.

It explores Swindon’s significant transport stories - less an encyclopaedic history of our transport in the town, and more a look at some of the narratives around innovations, successes and tragedies that have changed the face of Swindon.

The seven illustrated stories are the opening of the Golden Lion Bridge in 1870, the Swindon tram disaster of 1906, the arrival of the M4 in 1970, the arrival of Pressed Steel in 1955 and car manufacturing in the town, the adoption of the Swindon Submarine P-222, in 1941, the closure of Swindon Old Town station in 1961, and the first aeroplane landing in Swindon in 1912.

The tram disaster (pictured) happened on June 1 1906, when the number 11 tram was travelling down Victoria Road, the steep hill that leading from Swindon’s Old Town to New Town. The tram was crowded with passengers returning from the second day of the Bath and South West Counties Show which was held nearby at Broome Manor Farm. As the tram descended the hill, its brakes failed and the tram overturned, killing five people.

Swindon had a fleet of 48 trams, which ran from 1904 till 1929 - just 25 years - before being replaced with omnibuses.

The exhibition at SMAG in Bath Road is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm, changing from July 3 to 11am to 4.30pm. It runs till Saturday September 1 and admission is free.