Progress Rail adding workers in Muncie; employs hundreds

Announced with great fanfare and a gubernatorial appearance in October 2010, the locomotive engine builder sparked scrutiny and criticism when it didn’t meet its goal of creating 650 jobs within two years, when it imported workers from Canada and when it refused to allow Delaware County assessors into its huge building to formulate property tax bills.

Even Mayor Dennis Tyler recently told The Star Press he wasn’t quite sure what was going on inside the walls of Progress Rail’s Cowan Road building, the former home of Westinghouse/ABB.

“I haven’t gotten anything from anybody,” Tyler said.

But The Star Press has learned that Progress Rail has quietly but steadily grown in more than four years, adding workers and approaching the goal announced when then-Gov. Mitch Daniels and economic development officials stood on a stage outside the building and touted the Caterpillar subsidiary’s future in Muncie.

Progress Rail continues to be secretive — the company declined a request to let a reporter and photographer visit the plant in recent weeks — but a company spokesman answered questions via email and painted a picture of a manufacturer that has settled into its home and is growing.