After more than 40 years in the business, Greg Hess knows well the ebbs and flows of the rail car manufacturing industry. Hess has worked his whole life in the rail business, including the last eight as plant manager with Youngstown Bending & Rolling, a small Austintown company fighting to stay afloat in a competitive industry that has seen much of the work go to Canada or Mexico.

Hess supervises about 15 employees who often use dated equipment and work in a fraction of the space formerly occupied by Youngstown Steel Door, a company that in its heyday had employed more than 2,200 doing the same work but more of it on Austintown’s east side.

But with contracts to supply parts to Oregon-based Gunderson Railways and its parent company Greenbrier Company, billed as the “market leader in intermodal railcar production,” Youngstown Bending & Rolling is fighting hard.

“Gunderson is our main customer right now,” Hess said. “It’s feast or famine. That’s what’s scary about this industry. That press ain’t making me any money if it ain’t going up and down.”

And, in fact, the giant presses built in the first half of last century weren’t running the day of a visit to the cold, gritty complex earlier this spring. The quiet plant, instead, was waiting on an order expected any day.

“This year we are starting off on the down note, but we have orders,” Hess said.

Longtime employee Chris Rendes was one of the few keeping busy that day, however, using a small press to stamp out with great precision rail car door mechanisms.

Knowledge accumulated throughout his 25 years in the business showed when he spoke.

“These are all for the small box car doors for trains,” Rendes explained. “It connects to a pipe and operating bar so when you spin the handle, it opens. I work the big press, small press, Arbor press, hydraulic.”

Like many other business struggles, Hess knows workers like Rendes are not come by easily these days.

“This is a dying trade,” he said. “We can’t find young people here that can pass the drug test.”

Hess also understands that slow periods like this day should be devoted to chasing down new contracts.

“Now is the time we should be looking at going after new business, but when you are a one-man show – ,” his voice trailed off. “But that’s why I brought Tony over.”

He was speaking of Antonio Campana, an eager young sales representative. The John F. Kennedy High School graduate and Kent State student said he grew up in Warren hearing tales from his parents and grandparents about past successes of the Mahoning Valley.

“My goal in this first year of sales is to find more business opportunity within this region and create jobs for the Mahoning Valley,” Campana said. His excitement was obvious as he walked through the plant.

“Right here, this should be running all the time,” Campana said of the massive 4,000-ton brake press in place since 1948. “I would love nothing more than to see them all run at one time. We are capable of making anything.”

While some of the company’s 25 or so presses and machines are new, most of the big work, like stamping out and bending boxcar roofs, is done on presses made between 1919 and 1947.

“This is the last surviving belt-drive press that I know of, and we use it at least one time a month,” Hess said of the 780,000-pound machine used to make corrugated parts. “The efficiency was a big issue and keeping a belt on it was another problem.”

To overcome that, he said he had belts specially made with vinyl rather than typical leather.

“So far, so good. It’s been on there 15 years.”

An electric cord was strung across the floor connected to a small heater propped near a massive 1947 brake press standing 35 feet above the concrete floor, 17 feet wide and 20 feet below the floor.

“This is my girl, here,” he said, chuckling as he explained if he doesn’t keep “her” warm, she won’t start up with ease when the time comes.

Struggles for the small manufacturer may run deeper than the aged equipment, though.

Sarah Boyarko, the Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber’s vice president of Economic Development for North America, noted the challenges for companies attempting to break into the rail manufacturing industry.

“It’s a competitive industry,” Boyarko said. “There are folks out there on the national level already doing (manufacturing), and it’s difficult to jump into.”

Still, she sees it as a growing industry, due in large part to high demand for rail tanker cars. Manufacturers are backed up with orders, largely for oil tankers needed in areas like North Dakota where the oil boom is big, but pipeline infrastructure is woefully lacking.

An analysis of the rail industry and desire to grow high-speed rail manufacturing locally was compiled by the Regional Chamber and indicates that data predicts strong national and international growth in the industry.

The 2010 Regional Chamber study notes that a vast network of rail manufacturers already are positioned in and around the Youngstown-Warren regional area, making the area more attractive to investors who might consider locating a high-speed rail manufacturing facility here.

As far as economic development demand for access to rail, Boyarko said it comes in waves.

“As of recently, we haven’t had too many inquiries that have asked for rail, but in 2012 there was a significant increase in requests for properties that had rail on site.”

Despite the challenges, Hess is thankful for the work. “This would not be here if it wasn’t for (building owner) William Marsteller. He was going to scrap all this, and I begged him to give me six months, and we have been here eight years.”

blinert@tribtoday.com