Sorry to hear about Falkland Junction Yard. I have memories of working trains there as a goods guard in the 1970s. When was at Cadder I worked the 09:10 Cadder to Falkland Junction with a return working back to Cadder. This train was often worked by a Class 50 between turns on the West Coast Main Line. However, with 28 guards in the single link, it took over six months to work round the roster, so in the year or so I was a guard at Cadder, I probably only worked it for two weeks. After that I moved to Sighthill. I had almost forgotten, but at least when I first moved to Sighthill, we had a regular night shift turn to Falkland Junction. (I can clearly remember preparing a train in Falkland yard in the middle of the night in the rain. I had a peaked cap pulled down over my eyes to try to keep the rain off my glasses. It clearly wasn't the return working of 09:10 from Cadder!) If I remember rightly our train was the 20:44 from Sighthill to Falkland Junction. As the traffic from Sighthill was almost all in vanfits, this train often ran as a class 6, with me travelling on the engine rather than in a brake van. I can remember a really quite enjoyable week working it with driver Frank Callan of Eastfield. When I think about it, the return working was to Cadder. As the traffic would include coal from the various Ayrshire collieries (Barony, Killoch etc.), I would have to prepare a brake van if I hadn't brought one from Sighthill. Some of the coal would be in vacuum-fitted minfits, but a lot would be in ordinary unfitted end doors (as we Scottish railwaymen called the stand 16 ton mineral wagons). I suppose I knew that it was a way of life that was coming to an end, but I think I feel more than nostalgia for it. I think it was the railways' last serious attempt to be a serious participant in the business of freight transport.
On the subjects of railway locations that are a shade of their former selves, what about Oban? In the early 70s it had an attractive passenger station, and it was still receiving freight traffic (though a lot less than the West Highland Line proper to Fort William -- it was getting four to six freight trains a day from Cadder). When I was at Cadder we had the 03:50 freight train to Oban. We worked it to Taynuilt where we would change over with the Oban crew bringing the early morning passenger train from Oban. (I think it left at 07:25.) Once, before I was passed as a guard, when I was learning the road, we made it all the way to Oban. A diesel (it would be a class 27) had failed at Oban, and they were desperate to get the one off our train! Normally the Oban crews didn't want us to work the whole way. They were anxious to keep the jobs they had. I believe for them that job entailed working the passenger train to Taynuilt, working the goods back to Oban, and then doing whatever shunting was needed there. The freight traffic was light by my time, so there wouldn't be much to do. But at that time the traffic included tanks bringing fuel for the steamers. I don't know if they were carrying fuel for the steamers or something else, but the first train of the week (the 03:50 on Monday mornings) usually ran as a Class 6 conveying nine 45 ton tanks. At one time the load for this train was a special one of ten tanks (450 tons plus 73 tons for the locomotive) but it got stuck so often that the load got reduced to nine tanks. Even so I recall one night at Garelochhead. We were trying to get a run through the station, but the driver was briefly distracted watching his fireman exchange tablets, and the engine had slipped to a standstill by the time it reached the points at the end of the platform. I then emptied my detonators and left them in the locomotive cab. I then filled my detonator can with sand from the 27's sandbox and then hand-sanded the rail in front of the train for the next couple of hundred yards until the Sulzer found her feet again. Of course nowadays they don't have guards on freight trains, and the railway doesn't take freight to Oban any more, but I think we earned our money that night!
@d9009alycidon I joined this forum a few hours ago, to try to answer a post of yours back in May 2020 on the subject of "Glasgow Freight Terminals and Workings 1960s-80s". Having joined, I now see that that thread is closed to replies, and I can't see a way to send you a private message. However, if you can get in touch, I feel I could give you quite a lot of relevant information, based on my experiences as a practical railwayman in the 1970s.