Breaking up is not hard to do

the number one train breakers in the UK.

Jim, who scrapped steam locomotives in his father's Shettleston

scrapyard in the 1960s, founded MC Metals in 1987 after deciding to set

the points for his own business destiny.

The result is that diesel locomotives, coaches, and wagons by the

hundred have met their fate on the Springburn site, which Jim bought

from British Rail Engineering.

''I set up in business just at the time British Rail was working hard

to remove asbestos from its fleet,'' he says. ''Part of the old 'Caley'

St Rollox Works was for sale, including the specialised asbestos

stripping shed, so I bought the building and, practically working on my

own in those days, showed that MC Metals could remove asbestos

efficiently, cost-effectively, and fully in accord with all safety

regulations.''

From then on, it was green lights all the way for the company. Jim

scrapped the old class ''27'' diesels, which used to be the mainstay of

the West Highland and Glasgow-Edinburgh service.

''The run-down of the railways, and rail freight in particular, has

been good news for us,'' says Jim who now employs 12 train breakers.

''But I don't think that running down the freight system has been a good

thing for the country. We really need an efficient railway system.''

Jim, in fact, acquired a fleet of his own wagons to ship the recycled

locomotives to the furnaces at Ravenscraig. But scrap from MC Metals now

has to make the journey by road to the docks, where it is shipped to

Spain.

Not every locomotive brought in by rail or by road trailer to the

Springburn railway graveyard goes to Spain to be turned into new Seat

cars.

''I have become well-known to the railway preservation movement, and

they turn to me as a source of spares for locomotives on preserved

lines, both in Scotland and south of the border,'' says Jim with some

pride.

In fact, he has been to the Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway, to view the

Class 27 Diesel that he helped the rail fans get back on the tracks. And

in his files are letters from groups in England who, thanks to MC

Metals, can once more enjoy the mighty roar of their Class 50 engines,

used on the Glasgow-London main line 20 years ago before

electrification.

MacWilliam, at 51, well recalls the steam age but refuses to call

himself a rail buff. He does, however, admit that, with a lifetime's

railway-connected work, he does understand why enthusiasts queue up to

buy cab number and nameplates.

''You have to be sensitive. We even had one BR guard from the south of

England who came all the way up here to see his beloved locomotive being

broken up here. There were tears in his eyes as he watched. His wife

came, too. He had met her on a train pulled by the diesel.

''We don't normally let enthusiasts in, as this is a business. But in

his case we let him take a video of the locomotive receiving its last

rites.''

There is little room for sentiment in the scrap business. MC Metals is

strictly about making money, and the diesel locomotive that Jim owns,

and often drives over his own tracks, is used simply to push other, less

fortunate locomotives to their doom in the shed.

''At the end of the day,'' muses MacWilliam, ''these locomotives are

just so much steel, brass, and copper. With the run-down of the railways

continuing, and with privatisation under way, there will be plenty of

work for a long time to come.''

It's a strange twist to the tale of Springburn industrial history. On

the very site where locomotives were built in their hundreds in the

great days of the railway metropolis, there is once more a flourishing

railway-based business.

The vast majority of locomotives to stand in MC Metal's might leave in

the back of lorries as scrap, but occasionally one departs for a new

life.