COWLAIRS RAILWAY WORKS

'Cowlairs Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Works ', in Springburn, an area in the north-east of Glasgow, Scotland, was built in 1842 for the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway later taken over by the North British Railway.
It was named after the nearby mansion of Cowlairs, with both locomotive and carriage & wagon works. The first few locomotives were bought in, but in 1844, William Paton produced the 0-6-0 'Hercules'. After amalgamation with the LNER, new production finished, except for boilers and castings, such as brake blocks.
In September 1904, the Eastfield Running Sheds were built just to the north of the Cowlairs complex to maintain locomotives and to free-up more engineering space at Cowlairs Works. They were closed in 1994, however the depot site was redeveloped in 2005 and is once again in use as a maintenance facility for Class 170 trains by First ScotRail.
During World War II, like the North British Locomotive Company, both Cowlairs and St. Rollox joined in the war effort, among other things, producing Horsa gliders for the D Day airborne assault. Cowlairs also produced 200,000 bearing shells for Rolls-Roce Merlin engines.
At nationalisation into British Railways most of the work was transferred to Horwich railway works. Cowlairs closed in 1963, the work transferring to St. Rollox.
A new £20million state-of-the-art signalling centre and maintenance depot will be built on the former site of Cowlairs Works. A total of 450 staff will relocate to the new facilities.
The signalling centre will replace the existing 45-year-old system and is due for completion in December 2008. The maintenance depot will replace existing bases, including Cathcart, Lenzie and Shields.

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