1932. The Glasgow, Barrhead and Neilston Direct Railway built this building at 1596 Pollokshaws Road some time during the second
half of the 19th century for their employees. It lay at an angle enclosed within a curved fence of railway sleepers, on the shallow
crescent shaped plot of land where the now closed Esso petrol filling station stands in Pollokshaws Road today. Plans are afoot for
housing on the site. Behind, at a higher level, was the LMS Railway goods yard, the site of which is today occupied by Arnold Clark’s
car showroom. Note the precariously propped up veranda with the lean-to porch at the left-hand end of the upper floor. The
redevelopment Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) of 1959 lists three tenants here, Thomas Mooney, Bernard Conroy, and Elizabeth
Little, but there were probably four houses. The upper right-hand one has a more secure looking porch and toilet(?) of brick. The
door to the ground floor house on the left was probably where the cat and the cycle are seen, and the door to the one on the right
may have been out of sight behind the stairs. Note also the twelve chimneys, which seems excessive for a building of this size. Coal
merchants using the goods yard in the 1930s were Aitken Thomson, Vernal’s and, subsequently, the Co-op. On the left a couple of
five-plank wagons can be seen, probably part of a rake carrying coal to be unloaded, weighed and bagged into heavy duty canvas
sacks of 1cwt. These will be stacked on the coal merchant’s horse-drawn flatbed cart, and taken round the district and sold to
householders. Coal carts had a tailboard standing up at the rear, with the name, address & phone number of the merchant painted
on the back. They were loaded from the rear with up to 30 bags in one-and-a-half layers, a total weight of 1½ tons. Another feature
was square metal plaques mounted on rods held up by brackets fixed to the board, which projected above it and displayed prices
per cwt. On individual flags were BEST HOUSE COAL 1/10 (9p) a bag, NUTS (small graded coal) 2/- (10p), and DROSS (coal dust) 9d
(4p). Sometimes the name of the pit from which it came was quoted, usually one with a reputation of producing good quality house
coal, such as the Lady Victoria pit, at Newton Grange in Midlothian. In the right background behind the corrugated iron roof of the
shed, the uppermost floor of the red sandstone tenement in Haggs Road can be seen.