Cowlairs Works

Location type

Works

Name and dates

Cowlairs Works (1841-1968)

, Scotland
Served by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.

Description

This was the railway works and locomotive shed of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, located on the west side of the railway at the north end of the Cowlairs Incline. Cowlairs station was on the east side of the works, connected to it via a footbridge.

The works was for locomotives, carriages, wagons, and all equipment required on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway and, after 1865, the whole North British Railway system. Thomas Wheatley concentrated the company works here, expanding both the existing works and running shed here. Locomotive production increased from six new locomotives a year to forty. The Burntisland Works and St Margarets Works were wound down. A narrow gauge system served most of the works, track often at 90 degrees to the standard gauge lines.

Cowlairs even extended to supplies for the considerable North British Steam Packet Company which operated steamers on the Firth of Clyde from Craigendoran Pier and the Forth and Tay.

There was a locomotive shed, the eastern 9 lines of the original building (there was no room for a shed at Glasgow Queen Street High Level). The locomotive running shed was relocated to the new Eastfield Shed in 1904.

Cowlairs remained a steam locomotive works until the end - the St Rollox Works being re-equipped for diesel locomotives. Closure was in 1968.

Tags

Works locomotives carriages wagons engine shed



Chronology Dates

  /  /1841Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway
Cowlairs Works opens at the north end of the Cowlairs Incline at a site with space to expand. At this time the works site included the locomotive shed (for locomotive operations at the top of the incline). The shed was on the west side of the line and incline engine on the east side.
  /  /1867Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway
Cowlairs Works becomes the principal works of the North British Railway.
31/07/1873North British Railway
The first proper sleeping coach is built at Cowlairs Works, a re-building of a six wheeled double saloon. It went into operation between Glasgow Queen Street, Edinburgh Waverley and London Kings Cross, running north and south on alternate days.
  /  /1880Tay Bridge and Associated Lines (North British Railway)
4-4-0 locomotive Thomas Wheatley's no 224 retrieved from bottom of River Tay, rebuilt by Dugald Drummond at Cowlairs Works, nicknamed The Diver and put back in service. A letterbox, belonging to Dalhousie station and now at the museum in Bellingham [North Tyne], was made from metal from this engine.
  /09/1904Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway
Eastfield Shed opened north of Cowlairs West Junction. The shed replaced the running shed at the Cowlairs Works
  /04/1956British Railways
[1956 or 1960?] Order for 400 Conflat containers placed with Cowlairs Works.
  /  /1968Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway
Cowlairs Works closed. Alternative date: 1966.

Books


A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Scotland - The Lowlands and the Borders v. 6 (Regional railway history series)

An Illustrated History of Edinburgh's Railways

An Illustrated History of Glasgow's Railways

An Illustrated History of Glasgow's Railways

Central Glasgow 1893: Lanarkshire Sheet 6.10a (Old Ordnance Survey Maps of Lanarkshire)

Edinburgh ( Western New Town) 1877: Edinburgh Large Scale Sheet 34 (Old Ordnance Survey Maps - Yard to the Mile)

Edinburgh (Rail Centres)

Edinburgh (Rail Centres)
Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway Guidebook (Auld Kirk Museum Publications)
Edinburgh To Inverkeithing.: including The Port Edgar, North Queensferry And Rosyth Dockyard Branches. (Scottish Main Lines.)

Edinburgh Waverley

Edinburgh Waverley Station Through Time
Edinburgh's Transport: The Early Years v. 1
Glasgow Stations

Glasgow's Last Days of Steam

Haymarket Motive Power Depot Edinburgh: A History of the Depot, Its Work and Locomotives, 1842-2010

Landranger (66) Edinburgh, Penicuik & North Berwick (OS Landranger Map)

Last Trains: Edinburgh and South East Scotland v. 1

Memories of Steam from Glasgow to Aberdeen

Memories of Steam from Glasgow to Aberdeen

On Either Side, 1939: The Train between London King's Cross & Edinburgh Waverley, Fort William, Inverness & Aberdeen (Old House)

Rails Around Glasgow

The Next Stop: Inverness to Edinburgh, station by station

This Magnificent Line (the story of the Edinburgh-Glasgow Railway

Vanished Railways of West Lothian