Progress Rail to close Canadian plant; impact on Muncie factory unknown

MUNCIE — Progress Rail Services, which operates a locomotive plant in Muncie, has announced it is closing a Canadian plant embroiled in a labor dispute.

It’s still not certain what impact the closing of the Canadian plant might have on the Muncie plant on Cowan Road.

Since before a Jan. 1 lockout of more than 400 union workers at the Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London, Ontario, Canada, speculation north of the border had centered on the possibility that product lines — and jobs — from the Canadian plant might end up at the company’s Muncie plant, which opened in 2011.