EMD London Shut Down

One of EMD's fine products, an SD70M-2 outside Winnipeg.


You may remember that Caterpillar locked its London, Ontario workers out of the EMD locomotive plant after they refused the "last" contract offer. Caterpillar has now decided to shut the plant down and cease production of locomotives at the London, Ontario plant, and move production to their Muncie, Indiana plant.

It is probably no coincidence that Indiana just passed a right-to-work law essentially bypassing unions. It is now unlikely that a union will form at the Muncie plant.

The former workers continue to picket the plant.

EDIT: Local Mark's Work Warehouse stores pulled CAT boots from the shelves in support of the ex-EMD workers, and the Canadian Auto Workers union is talking about occupying the plant.

EMD Workers Locked Out

CBC is reporting that Electro-Motive Diesel has locked out its workers from the London, Ontario plant. The unionized workers (from the Canadian Auto Workers) were negotiating with the company, when the company made a "final" offer of a 50% pay cut (from $35 to $16.50/hour).

EMD is owned by Caterpillar, Inc. through Progress Rail.  EMD used to be owned by General Motors, but was sold to private investors in 2005. Caterpillar purchased EMD in the summer of 2010.

It is speculated that Caterpillar is interested in moving its locomotive production operation to the USA. The London plant performs final assembly of all EMD locomotives.

EDIT: Updated CBC story

Export Train in the Maritimes

An export train, CN 436, is probably arriving in Halifax right about now. Here's a video taken at Painsec just east of Moncton today of the train with CN 5504 as the power.


EDIT: Corrected location... thanks Peter G.

Class 66 locos in Halifax

Geoff Doane spotted CN train 436 arriving in Halifax this morning at 09:00 with 5 EMD export locomotives (GMRf 66723-7) behind SD40-2W 5245.