Dunlop Tire in Tonawanda is closing down.

The Dunlop (now Sumitomo) tire plant in Tonawanda has been shut down. Another rail customer lost.

Yup, I was thinking the same thing. Why are they closing? Foreign competition? As in China?

SST wrote:Yup, I was thinking the same thing. Why are they closing? Foreign competition? As in China?

No surprise, that depends on who you ask and who you believe. Reportedly they had given the employees a week off with pay. During that week, on Friday the 7th, there was a Board of Directors meeting in Japan, and they decided to close the plant effective November 11th. (only a few days after they had achieved the 10,000 tires made in one day milestone for the first time).

BSOR had the contract to switch the plant for a long time and I *THINK* they still do but not certain. The plant had a little 45-ton GE (which had a #26 air brake schedule ) and Google Maps aerial shows what look like a couple Alco switchers stored on one of the leads suggesting a BSOR presence.

The link below is to an extensive article on the closing, and in it there's a lengthy Q and A from the company that's interesting for those who care to read it.

https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/no ... acceptable

An amusing personal story - many years ago I got a tour of the plant. It was fascinating but a bit confusing. Why? It was not an OFFICIAL tour, and the employee who showed a couple of us around met up with us at the outbound shipping department. He walked us through the entire process - backwards - ending up at the raw material receiving area. A fascinating process but difficult to understand when seen in that sequence!

Apparently, both the Dunlap and Falkan brands have been operating at a loss for Sumitomo since they bought it from Goodyear in 2015, and this was their only US based facility.

Compared to other brands, they appear to have been solidly in the last tier competitively. Goodyear and Cooper have far more manufacturing presence in the US, as do other global brands like Michelin, Continental and Bridgestone, who have multiple plants each.

Gosh, that is a shame. I hate it for all the employees. We used to live on Dunlop Ave, just down a mile or so from the plant. A lot of our neighbors worked there.

Several videos on this utube channel of Sumitomo/BSOR operations. Look at how CSX pare down that yard once the Huntley Plant closed. There's a business on Sawyer Ave that gets tank cars.
https://youtu.be/-7gLPqaF6cc?si=_O7_PN7-uxC4aq4u