(The following article by Corilyn Shropshire was posted on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website on November 13.)
PITTSBURGH — Despite state and federal budget woes and a history filled only with promises, proponents of high-speed magnetic rail transportation still found cause to celebrate yesterday.
The cause was the launch of a renovated research and training facility in a former USX mill in McKeesport that will build a prototype for large steel components that can be used in Navy ships, bridges and as guide rails for high-speed magnetic levitation trains.
“This has been a great day for southwestern Pennsylvania,” Gov. Ed Rendell told the crowd gathered before a stage full of state officials. “This is going to be a premium facility for the nation and the world.”
The facility, built by the public-private consortium Maglev Inc. after the Office of Naval Research awarded it a one-year, $2.5 million contract, will train about 50 workers in cutting-edge advanced manufacturing developed by the Monroeville-based nonprofit.
The Navy estimates that Maglev’s precision fabrication technology, which controls the distortion of large steel parts when they are made, could save the Pentagon $50 million to $100 million per ship, said Maglev President and Chief Executive Officer Fred Gurney.
Thirty to 40 percent of the components built today have to be reworked and, Maglev’s technique, which it uses in building the guideways for the magnetically levitated trains, will render the distortion problem obsolete, he said.
Even though it’s far from certain that the long-delayed 240-mile-per-hour maglev system will ever be built in southwestern Pennsylvania or anywhere — the deficit-ridden federal government has postponed indefinitely plans to pump $950 million into a test project here or competitors linking Baltimore-Washigton, D.C., or Las Vegas-Anaheim, Calif. — the renovated brick facility had authorities expressing hope yesterday. With the McKeesport Tiger Marching Band as a backdrop, local executives, Mon Valley residents and dignitaries anointed the region as the future of advanced manufacturing technology.
“I believe in five to 10 years we can have biotech and high-tech manufacturing up and down the rivers,” said County Chief Executive-elect Dan Onorato. “And Mon Valley can be the leader.”
Onorato added that with or without the magnetic train, Maglev’s new facility was one of many examples of redeveloped brownfields in the region — former homes to heavy industry that have been revitalized for new uses. He’s hoping to transform an additional 1,500 acres of brownfields in the next decade.