Reborn St Rollox wins Transport for London contract – Daily Business

A historic Scottish rail yard will take a big step towards recovery after winning a contract with Transport for London.

The St Rollox rail depot in Springburn was saved from closure by Optical Express founder David Moulsdale who last year backed father and son Dougie and Fraser Gibson with £10 million to revive the facility.

The new contract will see Gibson’s Engineering strip back and overhaul 23 long vehicle wagons used by Transport for London for engineering purposes on its networks. The plant has long links London Underground.

Known as The Caley from the days when it was the works facility of the Caledonian Railway Company, its closure in 2019 seemed to signal the end of an era.

The TfL contract will provide two years of work for the 160-year-old yard, which will take on an extra 40 workers as Gibson’s aims to win more manufacturing contracts and return to being a significant player in the UK rail engineering sector.

“This is fantastic news for Gibson’s, as well as for the wider Scottish rail industry,” managinfg director Fraser Gibson, told The Times. “This contract shows that we are well on our way to seeing The Caley thrive again.”

Mr Moulsdale, who acquired the site during the Covid-19 pandemic for £5.75 million, said: “I was always confident in our ambition to see significant employment of engineers, coachbuilders, project managers and apprentices at St Rollox. We are breathing new life into The Caley.”

It is intended that St Rollox will have a fully-electrified rail line from its buildings to the mainline, between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and will be the only active wheel-shop facility in Scotland. 

At its height the St Rollox works employed 12,000 people, making it one of the largest rolling stock facilities in the world.

There are hopes it will become a beneficiary of future train-building contracts once the department for transport decides on the rolling stock needs of the new state-run Great British Railways and Scotland’s Railway.

In November 2018 Longannet was chosen as the preferred site for a Spanish company’s £40 million investment in a 1,000 jobs factory to build the next generation of high speed trains.

However, the plan was derailed with confirmation that a £2 billion HS2 contract has been awarded to two plants in England.