There are things we can’t tell you about Eastriggs, except that it’s the location of Railway Sidings Limited (RSL). The neighbours are a little bit sensitive about any more than that. When your neighbours are the military forces of the United Kingdom, it is prudent to respect their privacy. So we won’t be going into too many details here.
RailFreight.com had a privileged visit inside the security fences that surround Eastriggs, a railway location in the south of Scotland. The Ministry of Defence took a close interest. They had every reason to be watching – not that we could see them. The stealthy munitions depot was decommissioned nearly twenty years ago. Or so they say…
Foreign agent’s first-class posting
Locals suggest we are in the wrong place. An agent of a foreign power attempts to misdirect us (well, a postman from the possibly Czech-owned Royal Mail) and sends us off in the wrong direction. We ignore him. It’s confirmation for us that we’re almost there. We’re not really at liberty to say which unmarked road we drove down, but we arrive at very high gates, hidden away behind a nondescript housing estate in a quiet Scottish village.
After a suspiciously short wait, a posse of ‘hi-vis’ operatives appear at the gate, to check our credentials. “The MoD patrols come around a few times a day,” says the operative who can’t be identified for security reasons, but goes under the codename of Iain Fitzpatrick.
Old buildings, new mess
We’re instructed by our escort to follow a not-very-bulletproof tractor that looks like it was built to serve in the Second World War. We are not instructed to drive blindfolded – so we see the distinctly military buildings that may once have housed rapid deployment forces – or could have been the base canteen.
The headquarters for RSL has offices (one of which is repurposed as a staff mess room (it has a kettle). The building doubles as the maintenance engine shed and administrative centre, and judging from the floor space occupied by bogies, engine blocks and cab assemblies – it’s also the parts store.
Platform restoration going like a bomb
The ominous presence of two rakes of recently delivered bitumen tankers casts a shadow over the already overcast day. We set out to walk the extensive sidings. We encounter some passenger stock and an overgrown platform which codename Iain is steadily clearing, to bring back into use.
It’s not in an effort to reinstate a passenger service to Eastriggs. That would be served from the adjacent mainline. The platform at this location was used for the somewhat more volatile purpose of loading explosives trains. You see, Eastriggs had the original purpose of the United Kingdom’s principal wartime munitions factory over one hundred years ago.
Narrow gauge dispersal, standard gauge dispatch
Theer are forty miles (64km) of narrow gauge tracks at Eastriggs. Some of the layout is still extant on the site. The lines were laid to disperse the high-explosive products of the factory to myriad storehouses. The narrow gauge railways would be used to assemble loads, which subsequently were dispatched from the loading platform onto standard gauge trains. 16,000 people worked here in 1917 – when the peak of production was greater than all the other munitions factories in the UK combined.
HM Factory Gretna is no more. About one-thousandth of that peak number work here now – none of them involved in the production of munitions. “Well, unless the guys on the other side of the fence are up to anything we don’t know about,” says codename Iain.
Tanker refurbishment
Rumours are that members of the public may soon be able to go through security and venture into the secret world of Eastriggs. In collaboration with a local centre that tells the story of “The Devil’s Porridge”, sources close to RSL have leaked to RailFreight.com that opportunities to ride the rails within the site may be made available to the public.
Meanwhile, the sidings are filling up at Eastriggs. Sources close to the owner (well, actually, the owner, Gary Draisey) have told RailFreight.com that a temporary structure has been erected to facilitate the refurbishment of those bitumen tankers. They may find new life soon – possibly an “overseas deployment”.
For more details on visiting Eastriggs, watch their online presence – or visit The Devil’s Porridge Centre in the village and say: “codename Iain sent me”. They also do a nice bowl of porridge, which doesn’t taste anything like high explosive.