| Eastfield re-opening | |
A new train £14 million traincare facility was opened on the 13th of December 2004 in the north of Glasgow. The facility was built by Spencer for ScotRail and was funded by the Scottish Executive following the 29-strong order for Turbostars announced in December 2002. It is complimented by investment in traincare facilities at Stirling, Perth, Inverness and Haymarket, where these trains will continue to receive light maintenance. See below for the history of the site.
The photographs below chart the building of the traincare facility on the site.
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The old diesel motive
power depot in 1990. (Photographs of the demolition of the shed and the
later overgrown site to be added later.)
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The partly cleared site on 9/5/2004. Rails had been delivered to the site and some foundations of the new shed laid. Since the date of the previous photograph the backdrop had changed with a large number of houses being demolished and some new ones built. The Cowlairs north to west curve had also been singled and new Cowlairs signaling scheme was in commission which led to the closure of signalboxes at Cowlairs, Cadder, Sighthill East, Gartcosh, Gartsherrie, Garnqueen North, Greenfoot and Cumbernauld. |
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By
4/7/2004 the new building's frame was up and the first tracks laid.
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On
16/08/2004 a tank had been erected at the south end of the site, building
cladding added and much of the trackwork laid
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By
29/09/2004 the trackwork was more or less complete and maintenance platforms
were being assembled.
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On
17/10/2004 the platforms were nearly complete.
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Things
had not changed greatly by 24/10/2004.
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With
only a few days to go this was the view on 05/12/2004. A roadway had been
laid in to the shed crossing the sidings and the shed was due to open
in 8 days.
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The shed opened on 13/12/2004. This was the view of the newly opened shed on 02/01/2005. Space exists on site for further sidings to be laid and a lead out is already in position should that be required. |
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Eastfield Motive Power Depot was a locomotive shed in the north of Glasgow near Cowlairs. It was opened in 1904 by the North British Railway. The shed was famous for a clock tower. It was to survive the North British Railway and the later London and North Eastern Railway to be closed by British Rail in October of 1992. It had also survived and was redeveloped for the change from steam to diesel engines. The north end of shed yard was crossed by a long girder viaduct carrying the Hamiltonhill Branch of the Caledonian Railway which was later extended west to Dumbarton. This line occupied the route of an earlier waggonway which ran from pits at Eastfield west to Ruchill on the Forth and Clyde Canal.
The depot closed due to the change from locomotive hauled trains to Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) such as Sprinters. Maintenance of many of these DMUs was carried out in Edinburgh at Haymarket Depot. The vacant site was looked at by the Post Office who instead opened a rail connected centre at Shieldmuir by Motherwell. The site lay cleared of building and slowly reverted to nature.
ScotRail, created by the privatisation of passenger services in Scotland in 1994, has been running more services and acquiring more trains since it first took over the franchise. The number of trains requiring service has reached such levels that it was sensible to open a maintenance depot in Glasgow ... Eastfield being a sensible choice of location. A new depot was opened there on the 13th of December 2004.
All photographs (c) E Crawford.
Page created on 03/01/2005
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