Former WABCO Home Plant to Close in 2024

About 100 workers affected; Wabtec factory was built by George Westinghouse in 1889

By Jason Togyer
The Tube City Almanac
December 24, 2023
Posted in: Wilmerding News

Wabtec workers and local officials railled in Wilmerding in April 2022 to encourage the corporation to invest in the future of George Westinghouse’s historic factory. The company has announced plans to end operations and permanently lay off 94 workers. (Photo courtesy United Electrical Workers union via Facebook)

Almost 100 workers in Wilmerding and their families are having a very unhappy holiday.

Pittsburgh-based Wabtec Corp. last week filed notice with the state Department of Labor & Industry that it intends to end its remaining operations at the former Westinghouse Air Brake Co. plant beginning in February.

Plant operations are expected to shutter permanently in July 2024. The 13.1-acre facility was sold earlier this month to a Zelienople firm, Wilmerding Warehouse LLC, for $1.3 million.

The air brake company, founded by George Westinghouse in Pittsburgh in 1869, was the cornerstone of the inventor’s fortunes. WABCO’s factory moved to Wilmerding in 1889 and has been at the center of the borough ever since.

Wabtec threatened to close the plant in 2022 and rumors had circulated for months that the end was near. The Wilmerding factory spans 365,000 square feet, according to Wabtec’s annual reports, but only a small portion was still occupied by Wabtec operations.

WABCO at one point had approximately 1 million square feet of factory space spanning Wilmerding and Turtle Creek. About 17.9 acres of former WABCO property in Wilmerding were previously sold off in 2013.

Spokespersons from United Electrical Workers union Local 610, which represents employees at the plant, were not immediately available for comment.

The Wilmerding factory, which once produced braking and control systems for locomotives, railroad cars and public-transit systems, employed approximately 5,000 people during World War II and several thousand into the 1980s, but has been drastically downsized for decades.

The former WABCO merged with railroad locomotive manufacturer MotivePower Inc. in 1999 to form Wabtec. In 2019, Wabtec merged with the locomotive division of General Electric in Erie in a deal valued at $11 billion.

That year, the company moved its corporate headquarters from Wilmerding Borough to the North Side of Pittsburgh.

Members of Local 610 have called on Wabtec to invest in the Wilmerding factory multiple times, without success.

Threats by Wabtec to close the Wilmerding plant led to rallies being held in Wilmerding between Wabtec employees as well as elected officials from the borough, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and then-state Rep. Summer Lee.

“It has been the blood, sweat, and tears of the workers and community of Wilmerding that built the foundation of the corporate giant that is now Wabtec,” said Antwon Gibson, Local 610 president, at an April 2022 rally. “Wilmerding is this company’s flagship site. Rather than abandon the workers and Wilmerding community, Wabtec must keep the plant open, bring work in, and maintain family-sustaining jobs in Southwestern Pennsylvania.”

Wabtec Corp. spokespersons did not return requests last week from Tube City Almanac seeking comment.

Jason Togyer is editor of Tube City Almanac and volunteer executive director of Tube City Community Media Inc.

Originally published December 24, 2023.

In other news:
"Gergely Adds Voice to…" || "Taxes Remain Same in …"