Inside the plant building the fastest passenger trains in America

HORNELL, N.Y. — In a sprawling complex surrounded by hills, hundreds of yellow-vested workers are building the nation’s fastest trains — resembling the European-style rail cars that have largely been absent from American tracks.

The buzz of activity fills the Alstom manufacturing plant in this small western New York town, where concrete floors shine and the whizzing of drills echoes to the high ceilings. In every direction, Amtrak’s most advanced rail cars sit in various stages of construction.