The Wabtec Co. subsidiary informed the Idaho Department of Labor that the employees would be out of work in late-July, KIVI-TV reports. MotivePower Vice President John Howard tells the television station that a decline in the freight industry resulted in fewer orders for locomotives. The layoff will cut the company’s workforce in half, officials say.
“A number of our customers in the freight industry have curtailed their capital spending for 2017,” Howards says. “So unfortunately we are having to react as well.”
MotivePower has manufactured and remanufactured more than 2,500 locomotives at its 300,000-square-foot facility since the 1970s. These include the popular “MPXpress” series of diesel-electric passenger locomotives that commuter agencies from around the country have bought.
