As the railroad industry thrives, Pittsburgh companies profit and add jobs
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Ron Safran assembles an air compressor at the Wabtec factory in Wilmerding. The rail equipment supplier reported nearly $2 billion in revenue last year. -
Albert Neupaver, president and CEO of Wabtec Corporation in Wilmerding, the largest of all railroad suppliers in the Pittsburgh region, with more than 8,500 employees worldwide.
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The railroad industry is picking up steam again, after losing ground decades ago to the nation's trucking industry. And Pittsburgh's expertise and history in the business -- Andrew Carnegie and the city's other industrialists needed good ways to move their steel a century ago -- has put the region on track to benefit from rail's resurgence.
Western Pennsylvania is home to companies that build railroad cars, make parts to run the cars and fix the tracks beneath their wheels. Railroad signalling -- a key element in helping trains avoid running into each other -- keeps engineers busy on the South Side, while a company in Sharon refurbishes train wheels and couplers for reuse.
"Go to any railroad or any subway or transit station in North America and you will see that we have [products] in every locomotive, every freight car, subway car or transit bus," said Albert Neupaver, president and CEO of Wabtec, a Wilmerding-based rail equipment supplier with nearly $2 billion in revenue last year.
"In every one of them, there is some kind of product from Wabtec."
PG VIDEOThis is not a bad time to have expertise in trains. As the nation digs its way out of a deep recession, the railroad industry stands out as one of the few that are thriving and continuing to recruit and hire workers for high-paying manufacturing and engineering jobs.
"We are in the midst of what we call a rail renaissance," said Stan Hasselbusch, who until last week served as president and CEO of Green Tree-based L.B. Foster Co., a manufacturer that sells about a half-dozen key products for the rail industry such as track, concrete ties, anchors and joints.
Much of the rail industry's turnaround stems from its own self-improvement program.
The original heyday of railroads came to an end by the 1960s because of the advent of trucking and the interstate highway system. But in recent years, highways have become more congested and the cost of fuel has made road transportation more expensive.
The Association of American Railroads, based in Washington, D.C., reported recently that in 2010 railroads carried about 43 percent of intercity freight, while trucks moved about 31 percent. Railroads also proved to be a more economic means of transportation, moving a ton of freight an average 484 miles per gallon of fuel, a rate 106 percent more efficient than in 1980.
First Published February 5, 2012 12:00 am
