Springburn Virtual Museum

Railway industry

Skilled railway workers in Cowlairs erecting shop, 1920s

This photograph shows skilled workers assembling locomotive engines in the erecting shop at Cowlairs works. Cowlairs works was built in 1841 by the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway Company and was one of the earliest railway workshops to be built in Britain.

The works were built at the head of a steep tunnel between Cowlairs and Queen Street in Glasgow. Although largely unsuitable for building a railworks, this land was the only land available in the preferred area which was available for sale to the company's owners. Canal owners who owned most of the other available land in this area steadfastly refused to sell to a rail company, who they correctly saw as a huge threat to their monopoly on goods carriage.

The Cowlairs works were taken over by the North British Railway Company in 1865, which in 1923 became part of the London & North Eastern Railway. British Rail took over the works in 1948 before closing it nearly 20 years later.

Source: Glasgow City Archives