Laid off from Wabtec.

What Wabtec layoffs have meant for employees

Wabtec's layoff record carries more names than its own. Its main deals, as the 2025 Form 10-K lists them, included the 1999 merger with MotivePower Industries, the 2017 purchase of Faiveley Transport and the 2019 acquisition of GE Transportation, and the filings in our WARN tracker reflect that, with MotivePower's in Boise and Faiveley's in Greenville, South Carolina among them. The count takes in filings by businesses Wabtec owns today, including ones made before it bought them, and leaves out units it has since sold, such as Unitrac Railroad Materials. If you're trying to find the notice that covered your site, an older company name may be the one it was filed under. The hourly reductions Wabtec announced at Erie from 2019 to 2021 can't appear there, because our Pennsylvania records begin in 2023.

More than one of Wabtec's closing plans on record named another Wabtec site to take the work. The Boise plan named Erie, as KIVI reported, and YourErie later reported an hourly reduction Wabtec announced at Erie. The Brenham plan was set to send part of its production to a Longwood plant in Virginia, KWHI reported, and the Transit restructuring in the 2001 Form 10-K moved operations from the Chicago area to Montreal. If your plant's work is headed to another Wabtec site, the plan tells you where the work goes, and whether a role goes with the work is a separate question.

At Wabtec's Pennsylvania plants the unions have had a hand in how cuts were carried out. Wabtec told Railway Age that the Wilmerding closing, planned for 2024, was part of its 2022 contract agreement with UE Local 610. That plant had been the site of the company's corporate headquarters as late as 2001, the 2001 report shows. At Erie, YourErie reported, Wabtec worked out the 2020 save-a-job layoff incentive with UE Local 506, and in 2021 it rejected a claim about the 30-day notice for the reduction it announced that year, telling Erie News Now it was meeting and exceeding every contract notice requirement. If a collective bargaining agreement covers your job, it's worth reading what it says about layoffs and recall, if anything. The union scheduled a benefits session with Pennsylvania's Rapid Response team for workers affected by the reduction announced in late 2020 and was working to set up trade benefits meetings with the same team in 2021, which YourErie and Erie News Now both covered.

Wabtec's restructuring runs as a sequence of multi-year programs, as its June 2026 quarterly report describes them. Integration 2.0 set out to consolidate the operating footprint, reduce headcount and expand operations in low-cost countries, with up to about $170 million in one-time charges expected and about $147 million booked by mid-2026. Integration 3.0 aims to further consolidate the footprint and streamline manufacturing, engineering, administrative and commercial activities. If your work is in engineering, administration or a commercial role rather than on a plant floor, the stated scope of Integration 3.0 includes that kind of work as well as manufacturing.

Wabtec's planned closings in Brenham and Wilmerding were each scheduled over months, so a plant's closing date and a person's last day can be some way apart. If you've been given a separation date in writing, it can be a better guide for your own planning than the plant's closing target. If your Wabtec job was in Pennsylvania, Texas, Idaho or Illinois, Pennsylvania unemployment benefits, Texas unemployment benefits, Idaho unemployment benefits and Illinois unemployment benefits are places to check each state's rules.

A sourced history of Wabtec layoffs

• February 2025, plan to close Doncaster in England

  Wabtec announced to staff on February 7 a plan to close its Doncaster site and withdraw from UK rolling stock maintenance, a proposal Rail Business UK reported put up to 300 jobs at risk. One option was moving remaining component work elsewhere in the UK.

• January 2024, Longwood Elastomers closing notice in Brenham

  Wabtec's Longwood Elastomers unit planned to close its Brenham, Texas plant in phases over 12 months, shifting some production to Wabtec's Longwood plant in Wytheville, Virginia, Wabtec's communications director told KWHI. The January WARN filing lists 52 jobs.

• 2024, planned closing of the Wilmerding plant

  Wabtec set out to close its Wilmerding, Pennsylvania plant around July 1, 2024, with layoffs of 94 workers starting about February or March, and told Railway Age the underused plant had become too expensive to maintain.

• February 2021, about 40 more Erie hourly jobs

  Wabtec told Erie News Now it would cut about 40 hourly jobs in Erie during the first quarter of 2021, citing what it called market realities.

• October 2020, up to 150 permanent Erie layoffs

  Wabtec planned to permanently lay off up to 150 hourly workers in Erie from November into early 2021, as carload volume ran well below the year before. UE Local 506's president told YourErie it was the local's third layoff in a year and a half.

• April 2020, roughly 300 Erie hourly jobs

  Wabtec gave UE Local 506 notice of a permanent cut of roughly 300 hourly Erie jobs from late May into mid-October, citing the freight decline and the pandemic, and, per YourErie, offered a save-a-job layoff incentive worked out with the local that could offset up to 200.

• October 2019, about 100 Erie hourly jobs

  Wabtec announced a reduction of about 100 hourly jobs at its Erie site, citing an extremely challenged North American freight locomotive market, spokesperson Tim Bader told YourErie.

• September 2019, plan to fold Boise manufacturing into Erie

  Wabtec announced it would fold manufacturing at its MotivePower plant in Boise into its Erie site and close the Boise plant by early 2020, according to KIVI, which carried a company statement saying the step would simplify the manufacturing footprint.

• 2001, Transit production moved from Chicago to Montreal

  Wabtec relocated several Transit rail production operations from Chicago to Montreal in a restructuring whose $2 million charge, its 2001 Form 10-K shows, included severance costs for about 103 employees.

What to do if you're laid off from Wabtec

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Wabtec's biggest hubs: Pennsylvania, Idaho, Texas, Illinois. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Wabtec's hub states run: Pennsylvania, Idaho, Texas, Illinois, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.