St. Rollox railway works

Ex-Caledonian 2P 0-4-4T No. 55178 rests with many other engines on a Sunday at Balornock (St Rollox) Locomotive Depot in 1948.

St. Rollox Locomotive Works and St Rollox Carriage and Wagon Works were built in 1856 in Springburn, an area in the north-east of Glasgow, for the Caledonian Railway, moving away from their works at Greenock. The new works was built on the site of the station of the Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway which the Caledonian had absorbed, near to the chemical works of Charles Tennant and was named after the nearby parish church of St. Roche.

Locomotive construction

A number of locomotives were produced for the Caledonian Railway, among them, the Cardean and Dunalastair Classes.

St. Rollox was unusual in being purpose built for both locomotive and carriage & wagon works. In 1923 with the consolidation of British Railway firms created by the Railways Act 1921, it became the main works of the Northern Division of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, although new building ceased. In 1929 wagon repairs were moved to Barassie, leaving St. Rollox as the carriage repair centre.

War work

During World War II, like the North British Locomotive Company at Atlas and Hyde Park, both Cowlairs and St. Rollox joined in the war effort, among other things, producing Airspeed Horsa gliders for the D Day airborne assault. Cowlairs also produced 200,000 bearing shells for Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.

Monument to those that built locomotives at St. Rollox, by Jack Sloan in 1995.

Current use

After the abolition of LMS with creation of British Railways in 1948, the works remained the primary Scottish repair centre until 1986 when, under BREL, locomotive work in general was being run down. However it has continued at a reduced level and remains the only large railway rolling stock repair and maintenance works in Scotland. Part of the site was occupied for a time by MC Metals.

After the privatisation of BREL in 1989 the St. Rollox site was operated as a rail maintenance facility by Alstom. Surplus land was sold off and is now the site of a large Tesco, Costco and Lidl. The new Springburn Fire station and a Royal Mail sorting office are also located nearby. In 2007 Railcare Ltd, which also owns the Wolverton railway works site in Milton Keynes, took over operations at St. Rollox [1].

References

• Larkin, E.J., Larkin, J.G. (1988). The Railway Workshops of Great Britain 1823-1986. ' ' Macmillan Press.

Links

• Official Website