Of all the steel finishing processes to be carried on in the Monklands, the most extensive and longest lasting was that of tube manufacture. By the latter half of the 20^th Century the company of Stewarts and Lloyds had the monopoly of this industry within the United Kingdom, and had four large facilities in the Monklands District at the Imperial, Calder, British and Clyde works.

The Decline in the Industry began in the 1960’s with the closure of the Clyde works in Coatdyke and the process (any many of the workers) transferred to Corby. Seamless tube manufacture by the "Pilger" process continued at the Calder works into the 1980’s, but by that time the main tube manufacturing centre was at two mills in the Clydesdale Works at Mossend. The Monklands works were reduced to the role of carrying out finishing processes, such duties being surface treatment (shotblasting and coating), machining, and manufacture of couplers. Closure of the structurally antiquated British Works came in 1981 and the Calder followed into the history books in 1986. Both sites have been totally cleared and no trace can be seen of their existence.

The decision to retain the Imperial Works as a finishing plant was itself one instigated by a parochial minded MP, trying to hold on to a small pocket of industry with the short sighted (no pun intended) aim of retaining a few hundred jobs on his patch. This at a time when the rest of the world was recognising that it made good business and logistical sense to concentrate steel manufacturing on centralised sites where the raw material went in one end and the fully finished product came out the other.

The plant has poor road access, was adjacent to a residential area from which came bitter complaints about the noise, and the rail line, while it existed, was itself difficult to work. The inevitable result of this policy was to make the whole process less viable and lead to the almost complete closure of the industry. Paradoxically the Imperial Works (under French ownership) has outlived even the tube mill at Clydesdale (closed in April 1991), where only a heat treatment plant remains. Common sense would finally be about to be seen as the new owners have plans to concentrate production at the old Clydesdale site.
 

The extensive yard at Clydesdale Tubeworks.  The high sided wagons were used for the shorter linepipe, the longer casing pipe is an the bogie bolsters readiy for transfer to Imperial Works for Finishing.  All the buildings in the background have now been demolished.

RAIL ACCESS

All four Monklands sites were rail connected as follows:

British Works	Access via Souterhouse Branch. Traffic was mainly scrap metal (swarf etc)
Calder Works	Substantial Yard to the south side of the Caledonian Railway’s Airdrie branch accessed from just to the east of Whifflet High Level Station. Yard was also used as a storage point for tubes awaiting processing at Imperial Works
Clyde Works	Access via the Sheepford Branch (see photograph on the Coatbridge Page)
Imperial Works	Access from the Caledonian Railway’s Airdrie branch at Cairnhill. Upon closure of the Caledonian Goods Station in July 1964 the end of the branch was at the Cairnhill Road Overbridge, which then formed a headshunt for reversal into the plant sidings

 

The route required two reversals, at Rosehall Junction and at the headshunt beyond the Imperial branch.  Traffic on the branch ceased following the closure of the Clydesdale plant in the early April 1991, and the branch was mothballed pending further use.  Any plans to re-use the line were halted when first there was major subsidence in the embankment east of Whifflet, then the road bridge over the A725 was struck by a mobile crane with such force as to render it unsafe.  This was fortunate for the local planners, for as soon as the bridge was removed the road was widened to dual carriageway and a large roundabout created at the site of the bridge.
 
 
 

Schematic Map of the routes taken by the semi-finished seamless steel tubes between Clydesdale Tubeworks at Mossend and the finishing plants in Airdrie and Coatbridge.  The most frequently used route was to Imperial Works in Airdrie and this route is shown as a blue/green hatch.

There are two good photographs showing typical tube traffic on the Imperial Branch to be found in George C. O’Hara’s book "Scottish Urban and Rural Branch Lines". The first (plate 250) shows class 20 No 20125 crossing Coatdyke viaduct on the 28^th of March 1985, the second (plate 251) shows the same train on the Imperial branch looking towards Cairnhill