From ruin to renaissance: Glasgow's industrial cathedral rises again

The Herald Scotland

14 hours ago

The locomotive works of the old Caledonian Railway Company at its St Rollox depot in Springburn were known universally as 'The Caley'. Here in huge bays set within great halls stretching over vast acres, teams of skilled tradesmen built the carriages and then maintained them and repaired them to go again and again in Britain's tempestuous weathers.
During its most productive pre-Second World War years and in the two decades following it, the Caley thundered to the heavy metal of 12,000 workers. For 160 years it maintained the heartbeat of the economy in this part of Glasgow: in Springburn, Possil, the Milton, Sighthill, Barmulloch and the Garngad. It kept the lights on in thousands of homes and put food on their tables.
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We Scots occasionally like to crow about how many grand politicians and men and women of influence that our once great education system produced. Yet, it's one of the great mysteries – and tragedies – of Scotland's post-war industrial history that none of them, nor the parties and institutions they led, could lift a finger to prevent the demise of this place and Ravenscraig and the shipyards and all those other sacred grounds where generations of workers helped Britain win wars and become one of the world's richest economies.
Today though, these caverns are lit up once more. Hard toil and ingenuity have returned. The Caley is doing its locomotion again: shifting trains; repairing engines; moving people. Rattling and rolling.
Six years after the last of its dwindling 180-strong workforce were made jobless, skilled work is returning to these halls. It completes the first phase of a remarkable work of industrial salvation every bit as sacred as those depicted in the galleries of Florence and Rome. In 2021, two years after this citadel fell into darkness, the Scottish entrepreneur, David Moulsdale, bought the site and then refurbished it for around £10m.
Those predicting some kind of themed vanity project involving ethical pop-ups and artisan tomfoolery were confounded. Mr Moulsdale, one of the UK's most successful businessmen, had other ideas rooted in a devotion to the achievements of Scotland's rich industrial past and the values that came with them.
Scottish entrepreneur David Moulsdale bought the site of The Caley and refurbished it for around £10 million (Image: Colin Mearns) The skills that made Scotland the world's engineer-in-chief never really disappeared. In 2024, Mr Moulsdale went into partnership with Gibson's Engineering, a Scottish firm owned and operated by father and son Dougie and Fraser Gibson, who have a combined lifetime of respect and achievement in Europe's engineering sector.
Mr Moulsdale may have taken a wee while to choose his partners, but it seems he's chosen wisely. They re-opened the Caley as a manufacturing, maintenance and repair facility specialising in the railways. A year later their proven expertise and David Moulsdale's patience paid off in spectacular fashion when Transport for London last week awarded them a prestigious, two-year contract to repair and overhaul 23 engineering wagons.
It's expected to provide 40 jobs, but the longer term goal is to have these great brick and iron chambers making trains once more and making them a centre of Scottish engineering excellence and innovation a century after the last train carriages were built here. In the week when Alexander Dennis abandoned its 400-strong workforce in Falkirk, with the Scottish and UK governments sitting helplessly once more sucking their thumbs, the resurrection of The Caley may yet provide a jobs lifeline for some of them.
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You have to see this space and these long, stone vestibules to appreciate how big this facility is. Yesterday, I walked with the Gibsons, father and son, and Mr Moulsdale. In that reassuringly canny way in which Scots greet triumph and disaster, none of them were getting carried away by their big London award, but you could tell they were quietly buzzing.
'It's all about bringing in the right people,' says Fraser, 'that's crucial. It's essential that we do it right and don't try to grow too quickly. We're targeting a broad skillset that once made this place great, but you have to look hard and take your time to find them. We don't want to become a blip and walk before we can run.'
Dougie references the farce that is Scotland's current attempts to build a single serviceable ferry. 'The builders took on a massive and complex ferry project that they simply weren't prepared for. We're building a senior team here who have worked with all of the UK's major train manufacturers. People are already knocking on our doors for jobs – we're doing interviews today – but they have to have the right skillset and the correct work ethos. We want to create longevity here.'
You have to check yourself from getting too carried away when you walk these old disused work-lanes. You can barely imagine what they looked like with thousands of men building trains from the wheels up and installing upholstery and doors and then leaving at the end of their days to head for the few taverns in Springburn or round the corner on the Royston Road or Blackhill that might still remain from that time.
These men, though, have big plans for the Caley. 'We want this place to be back in full operation,' says Mr Moulsdale. Transport for London is the largest transportation organisation in the UK and has the most robust suite of requirements. Your safety certification; your technical capability; your experience; your equipment: all of these are factored into their analysis when they do their due diligence before they award any contracts.
'Securing a contract with them – hopefully the first of many – I think that will stand us in good stead. It's given everyone a confidence boost that the largest and most stringent organisation in the UK have endorsed you.'
'We want this place to be back in full operation' (Image: Colin Mearns) This will surely unlock other opportunities, including several closer to home with Scotrail about to update its own rolling stock. As well as making big metal and wooden beasts that traversed the globe, Scots invented stuff that keeps you alive and makes life a little more affable: penicillin, television, the telephone. We invented the bicycle, tarmac and the rubber tyre. We can still make things go.
Professor Sir Jim McDonald, past principal of Strathclyde University and an electrical engineer to trade has spoken of his delight at what he calls 'a renaissance in Scottish manufacturing and engineering' and David Moulsdale hopes to partner with Strathclyde to provide graduate engineering opportunities as well as connecting with Forth Valley College in a programme of apprenticeships. The Caley would become an academy of engineers.
Trains are becoming more popular as people's awareness of the environment and clean energy grows,' says Mr Moulsdale. 'Fraser and Dougie have got great relationships with the most senior people at most of the train companies. Engineering capacity across the UK has reduced and this presents us with good opportunities. Trains will require more maintenance and meanwhile many are currently beyond their approved maintenance schedules.'
The Glasgow MSP Paul Sweeney, who campaigned intensely for the Caley to be saved after the last 180 jobs went in 2019, said: 'It struck me as atrocious that so little value was placed on the skills and the knowledge built up over centuries or the impact it had on families.
'People wrote this place off as clinging to a dinosaur industry, but it never was. It's such a vast industrial asset: the only place in the UK that can carry out wheel maintenance.'
Gibson Engineering will secure future work purely on the abilities and the expertise of this father and son and the backing of David Moulsdale and the people they choose to make this place to rattle and rock once more. But along the way, you'd expect to see them delivering big Scottish public projects.
In 2019, the Scottish Government allowed the Caley to die by refusing even the possibility of nationalising it as a key strategic asset. It was another betrayal of Glasgow's working people and one made more unacceptable by the millions they poured into a company making a ferry years behind schedule and hundreds of millions over budget.
'We want to have the Caley working at full tilt, 24 hours,' says Dougie Gibson. 'Our aim is to grow as the work comes in. But we also now have to deliver on time and within budget.'
I ask them if they could maybe start thinking about putting in for some of those ferries. You could fit a few of them in these grey, painted avenues. And a couple of jumbo jets too, come to think of it.
Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist and is Scottish Feature Writer of the Year. This year is his 40th in newspapers