MC Metals was a metal recycling company based in the

Springburn Springburn () is an inner-city district in the north of the Scottish city of Glasgow, made up of generally working-class households. Springburn developed from a rural hamlet at the beginning of the 19th century. Its industrial expansion began ...

area of

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, Scotland.

History

MC Metals was founded by Jim MacWilliam in 1987. The company was made famous through the scrapping of huge numbers of

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

diesel locomotives in the 1980s and 1990s. It operated on railway-owned land adjacent to

British Rail Engineering Limited British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) was the rolling stock manufacturing and maintenance subsidiary of British Rail. It was established on 1 January 1970 by the British Railways Board to operate its 14 rolling stock maintenance centres and ...

Glasgow Works Glasgow Works, formerly the St Rollox Works, is a railway rolling stock heavy maintenance and repair works established in the 1850s in the Glasgow district of Springburn by the Caledonian Railway Company, and known locally as 'the Caley'. Own ...

. A condition of its lease was that only ex-railway scrap could be processed there. It also carried out asbestos removal work. Rail vehicles arrived from all parts of the UK via a rail connection or by road. The site is now occupied by a

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...

supermarket.

Contributions to Railway Preservation

Despite being a metal recycling company, this facility played a role in helping some locomotives, primarily diesel locomotives, find new lives at various heritage railways. One example was Class 20 No. D8098 in the early 1990s. This locomotive now works at the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its Great Central Main Line, London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company ...

. Another example is Class 26 No. D5301/26001 which was rescued in the mid-1990s and now works at the

Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway The Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway (L&HR) is a heritage railway in Cumbria, England. History Furness Railway operation of the branch line The railway is a former branch line of the Furness Railway (FR) and was opened on 1 June 1869. The li ...

. One railcar belonging to the Class 111 No. 59575 was rescued from here as well. One Class 45 locomotive No. 45125 was rescued from this facility during the late 1980s and early 1990s and now works at the

History

Contributions to Railway Preservation

References

Further reading