Karmactive Team
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Alstom has chosen its historic Belfort facility in eastern France to produce a new line of shunting locomotives — the industrial workhorses of the rail network that move and reposition railcars in freight yards and depots.
The announcement was made by Belfort’s mayor, Damien Meslot, on September 1, 2026. The product line is marketed as the Traxx Shunter. These are not high-speed trains. They move freight cars around rail yards over short distances, handling the kind of sorting and switching work that happens before and after long-haul trips.
The market case for them is straightforward. André Fages, a union delegate from CFE-CGC, described the existing SNCF shunting fleet in blunt terms: “40, 50, 60 years” old. He called the stock “something prehistoric.” Much of Europe’s freight rail infrastructure is running on aging diesel-powered switching engines, and there is real demand — both from national operators like SNCF and from private freight rail companies — for modern replacements, including hybrid and battery-electric versions that reduce terminal emissions.
Alstom’s Belfort plant already has a substantial order book. Nearly 500 locomotives are due to leave Belfort’s workshops over the next four to five years, primarily for SNCF and for Ukrainian railways. The new Traxx Shunter production adds to that pipeline.
The employment numbers are significant locally. The Belfort site had fallen to just 450 workers at its lowest point. With the shunter contract, the site is now expected to grow past 1,000 permanent employees. Meslot noted that “one employee at the Alstom site is three induced jobs in the surrounding area” — meaning the ripple effect for the local economy is roughly three times the direct headcount.
Unions welcomed the production allocation but were quick to add conditions. Eddy Cardot from the CGT union pressed for the roughly 150 temporary agency workers and 150 contractors currently working on site — some of whom have been there for years — to be converted to permanent employment. “We need their skills to build these locomotives,” Cardot said.
To accommodate the added volume, Alstom is completing construction of a new building at the Belfort site, referred to internally as 235 B, which is scheduled to be inaugurated this winter.
The Traxx Shunter contract follows Belfort’s existing TGV-M high-speed trainset production, giving the facility a more stable and diversified production cycle than it has had in recent years.
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