FORT WORTH, Texas — GE Transportation Services will lay off 250 workers from its Fort Worth locomotive production plant in the coming months.

“The North American rail market continues to be challenging. Freight rail volume has dropped year-over-year and the number of parked freight locomotives remains high,” Tim Bader, a GE representative, tells Trains News Wire. “As a result, production volume is down at the facility in Fort Worth, Texas, requiring only 50 percent of the site’s available capacity.”

The layoffs will begin in April. The plant will also reduce the retained employees’ schedules from 40- to 32-hours-a-week starting in June. Bader says that the laid-off employees will receive company benefits and will be eligible for state unemployment insurance.

The Fort Worth plant began operations in 2012. Since then, the facility has produced more than 1,000 locomotives for a variety of railroads including Union Pacific, BNSF Railway, Canadian National, and Ferromex.