RAIL workers will demonstrate outside Glasgow’s historic Springburn works on Friday — the day it is due to close.

Owners Gemini Rail Group say the works, known as the “Caley,” is no longer viable. 

New ScotRail trains are maintained and repaired directly by their manufacturers.

Unions and opposition politicians fiercely dispute this claim and have called for the works to be renationalised.

Labour MP Paul Sweeney has drawn up an alternative plan with North Lanarkshire council for the works to overhaul a historic steam locomotive as a stop gap before a new owner can be found.

Rail union RMT said the closure was “an insult to the rail industry in Scotland and the sweeping away of 160 years of rail engineering history in a wanton act of industrial vandalism.”

On Friday the workforce and their supporters will meet at the sheds at 11am.

They will march with banners and flags held high to the gates for a rally to mark the completion of the site’s final project.

The union’s general secretary Mick Cash said: “We are calling for a big turnout to ram home the message that Springburn and its history will never be erased and to demand that the option of nationalisation of our railways to stop this wanton destruction be placed centre stage.

“This is just another example of the fragmentation of the privatised rail industry where prime assets are passed from one speculative owner to another.

“It means a proud railway nation like Scotland loses a key engineering resource at the stroke of a pen regardless of the consequences for jobs, training and the local economy. It is an absolute disgrace.”