MC Metals was a metal recycling company based in the

Springburn Springburn ( gd, Allt an Fhuairainn) 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 indu ...

area of

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, 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 of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

diesel locomotives in the 1980s and 1990s. It operated on railway-owned land adjacent to British Rail Engineering Limited's

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 Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

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. 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. Location The L&HR runs from Haverthwaite at the southern end of the line via Newby Bridge to Lakeside at the southern end of Windermere. Some services are ...

. 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 Great Central Railway.

History

Contributions to Railway Preservation

References

Further reading