The History of the Railway Works in Springburn Glasgow
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- Опубліковано 24 лип 2024
- By the late 1800s the area of Springburn in Glasgow was home to the largest concentration of railway locomotive and carriage works in the world. The area also contained one of the largest chemical works in the world. This video showed how this particular part of Glasgow became so important.
Thank you for providing so much background history to the Springburn area.
Thanks for this great posting, when I was at secondary school our class was taken to the locomotive works at this point while still operating it had the appearance of decline.
Thank you for this video, I've stayed in Springburn all my life and found your video very informative.
Very well researched and put together, thank you!
Just winderful, thank you for this
Well done. That was very interesting and informative. Thank you
Thanks for posting. My Great Grandfather was an apprentice at the Hyde Park Works. In 1912, He with many other Scots Engineers went to South America and helped design and build the South American and Argentine Railway Systems. He became one of the Head Engineers in Buenos Aries..Then came back to Scotland to retire.
Outstanding video from my perspective, as it filled in many gaps between being born in Petershill Road in Springburn in 1938, and my emigration in 1972 to England and then to Toronto.
It also brought back many memories: (a) I was frequently reminded by my Mother that we lived in the ‘steam engine capital’ of the world, usually when the roads were closed to allow a very large engine to be transported to Finnieston to be loaded by ‘The Big Crane’ for shipment overseas; (b) As a kid, I frequently played ‘war games’ using ‘The Saltwaste’ in Sighthill as the war zone, in spite of repeated warnings from my Mother that it was a dangerous place, and blissfully unaware that it was really a white chemical bing for Tennant’s Bleach Works, where they consumed large quantities of sulphuric acid; (c) Much later I studied at the forerunner to Strathclyde University, and in my final year I won the Montgomery Neilson prize in Thermodynamics, again blissfully unaware, until two years ago, that the prize donors were two of the three key people who put Springburn on that world map; (d) When I was 10 years old I was an avid supporter of the Ashfield Giants Speedway team who rode at Saracen Park in Hawthorne Street, and for every home match I took the illegal short cut to and from the racetrack by cutting the corner from Cowlairs Road, going across the multiplicity of rail lines that entered the Cowlairs Works, (e) Also at that time the father of my best friend at Petershill School was the Superintendent of the Foresthall Institution, the then new name for the Barony Poorhouse, and we frequently played in the expansive grounds there, always keeping well clear of the ‘residents’; and finally, (e) A few years ago I obtained a copy of a German navigators map of Northern Glasgow with an ‘X’ marking the Hyde Park Works as an alternative target if the weather over the Clydebank shipyards was cloudy or foggy, these Works being about 300 metres from the rear of our tenement building!
Thank you for your kind words Ian.You certainly lived a dangerous youth! And it's amazing that you remember sites that are now long gone.
I lived in Townhead during the 1950s. Your “Saltwaste was our “Stinky Ocean”.
Watched a couple of years ago a documentary on TV about some narrow gauge railways in Northern India. Most of the steam engines were built in Scotland between 1920 and 1935.The railway engineers were proud to show that the engines had plaques showing they were built in Springburn or Glasgow. The local people loved them as they worked then needed. They would transport everything up n down the hillsides between the villages. The engines were primarily coal burning, but could use wood or even grass to get going. Most had had several refurbishments of some level, these were usually bearings, seals and the pipes inside the tanks. The main body rarely need any work apart from regular painting.
I worked in the last remaining part of St Rollox works in springburn as an electrician.
Amazing building, so impressive.
Sad to see it finally close.
It’s not been flattened yet thankfully.
My dad was a rigger in it for many years, he was also a health and safety man, latterly the main job the men where doing was stripping old railway carriages and most of those had asbestos in them, my dad died with lung cancer.
Very informative
Very interesting and informative Ross. Thank you.
Thank you. Great work.
My Dad worked at st Rollox from the age of 12 till he got laid off when in his 40s c1960 Then went to Weirs Pumps Cathcart
Died at 66 (with all the usual lung and heart stuff} after 1 year of retirement, I think the bosses got there moneys worth
Thank you.
thank you
Any old pictures of the large locomotive work in Springburn Glasgow.
There were 4 large loco an carriage works in Spring burn - Cowlair, Hyde Park, Atlas and St Rollox. There are some photos on railscot co.uk and I think some published books have photos. Many of these will be copyright protected and cannot be published online.
the atlas works did not close in 1923 it closed in 1963 my father worked there until it went into administration and I attended springburn college of engineering which were the old offices of the North British Loco company in 1968 t0 1972
PS. My Paternal Grandfather - Thomas Reid - worked at Blochairn Steel Works. He died in 1978, from heart, lungs, etc., 'complications'.
My Maternal Grandfather - James Keir Brown - started his working life as a Shunter. He then went on to work at St Enoch's and Queen Street stations as an Inspector. With respect, I shall not repeat his last words to me.
RIP to both men, who moulded me as a man.
Rab 💚
Thank you, Ross. 💚