PA: Alstom shows offf West Mifflin production facility to Lt. Gov. Davis

As Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, McKeesport native Austin Davis frequently gets to travel to the far corners of the state to find hidden gems.

And sometimes they are right down the street.

On Thursday, Mr. Davis, who now lives in West Mifflin, toured the local manufacturing site of Alstom.

Alstom, on Lebanon Church Road, is an international leader in the production of automated people movers, the kind of small trains primarily used to move passengers around airports.

Alstom officials showed Mr. Davis the worker training process and the factory floor where propulsion systems are assembled by hand and took him on a test ride in a new vehicle on a 5,700-foot test track.

They also took the opportunity to push for more stable funding for public transit, a key issue that Gov. Josh Shapiro has been pushing the past three years.

“What you guys are doing is actually amazing,” Mr. Davis said as he scanned the assembly area, where crews worked at four stations adding various elements to people-mover cars intended for the Tampa Airport. “I had no idea this was here.”

Alstom, a world leader in propulsion system for rail cars, took over the site with a long history in 2021. The factory dates back to the prototype for the never-built sky bus in the 1970s and previous owners included Westinghouse Transportation, General Electric and Bombadier.

Assembling the propulsion system is a complicated process that is done entirely by hand. Alstom’s biggest improvement in recent years has been reducing the size and weight of the system from 4,000 pounds to about 1,800 pounds, allowing the system to be placed on the roof of the cars rather than underneath.

That allows the car to ride lower and eliminates passengers having to climb steps to get in.

These days, the France-based company has people-moving systems in 12 of the 14 largest airports in the U.S. and contracts with many of the larger airports around the world. In many cases, those systems built by other companies use Alstom propulsion systems.

The West Mifflin site has about 850 workers and Alstom has other facilities in the Strip District and the Philadelphia area. One of its largest current contracts is $713 million to build 130 trolleys for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority that serves the five counties around Philadelphia.

Scott Sherin, Alstom’s chief communications officer, sounded a lament that Mr. Davis understood immediately: the lack of dedicated state funding for transportation. That lack of transit funding that threatens service cuts across the state also makes it difficult for an employer like Alstom to plan its business operations because it never knows when transit system will have the money it needs to proceed with a major purchase.

Pittsburgh Regional Transit has been pushing for more than five years for funding to replace 80 light rail trains, which could take five to seven years to deliver after an order is placed.

Mr. Sherin and others stressed that the company buys supplies from more than 200 other Pennsylvania companies to produce its products.

“The work we do here is almost like a public service that no one recognizes,” he said. “We think there’s a great need to raise the awareness of what we are doing and how it benefits the state.”

Mr. Davis agreed, noting that the Shapiro administration has included additional funding for public transit in the state budget the past three years but the Republican-controlled Senate hasn’t approved it. Last fall, the state allowed transit agencies to use capital funds for operating expenses the next two years while legislators work on a financing package.

The governor has been meeting regularly with House and Senate leaders in an effort to pass additional funding this year to begin distribution next year. The message they are spreading is that transit benefits the whole state, either through direct service or spending by firms like Alstom

“We recognize we need a reliable, sustainable funding source,” he said. “We think we’re making progress.”

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