WHILE the River Clyde was world famous for building ships, a few miles north the railway works in Springburn was doing the same with locomotives.

Engines and carriages built at the Glasgow works were dispatched on those ships and sent all around the globe.

Giant engines would be manoeuvred though the narrow Springburn streets on low loaders to be loaded by crane on to cargo ships to be sent to pull carriages on railroad racks around the world.

Springburn was known as the locomotive builder for the world.

There has been a railway workshop at the St Rollox site since 1856, when it was first opened.

Through various changes of ownership and serving a number of different purposes the Caley has endured and been a source of work in the area for more than 150 years.

It has survived and played a role in two world wars, been through nationalisation with British Rail and privatisation in the 1990s.

Closure of the depot by current owners Gemini Rail would end that proud history, an ending that is unnecessary.

The Evening Times has called on the depot to be saved to ensure that history continues.

At its height the Caley employed almost 3,500 workers as generations of Springburn workers would toil in its sheds.

Today there are still people employed there who are carrying on that family tradition.

One man told of being the third generation of his family to be employed at the Caley.

Barry Adamson said:” My family, My Grandad and my father both workers at the Caley. We really need to keep these jobs here in Scotland for the Scottish people.”

Another has seen his son follow in his footsteps and hoped it would secure his future.

Danny Ross said: “Three years ago my son just joined the Caley and I thought ‘ a job for life for him’. “Now he’s getting made redundant in three weeks maybe six weeks. It just depends if they want to pay him off. He’s only 22 years old.”

“I’m 54. I’ve got a passion for his place same as the rest of the boys here.”

These are then men carrying on the historic tradition of railway engineering in Springburn.

And they want to be able to pass it on to the next generation.