IT HAS been a tough summer for Muncie, a small city 60 miles north-east of Indianapolis and half way between an industrial past and a possible future as a college town. Unemployment dipped briefly below 9% this spring, but floated back up to 10% in June and July. The car-parts makers that were once Muncie's life blood have largely given up on it; but creating skilled manufacturing jobs at a new locomotive factory is turning out to be a hard slog.

Since sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd rechristened it “Middletown” in a famous study in 1929, Muncie has been regarded as representative of the American experience. In the more diverse 21st century American economy, that is no longer exactly the case, but Muncie's experience of declining manufacturing employment is similar to that of many small cities across the rustbelt. So when Indiana's governor, Mitch Daniels, came to town last October, and announced that 650 new jobs would be created assembling locomotives for Progress Rail, a subsidiary of Caterpillar, and a largely abandoned factory rehabilitated, local press and politicians reacted with enthusiasm.

That feeling is wearing off. Fewer than a quarter of the promised jobs have materialised and not a single engine has rolled off the production line. According to a Progress Rail spokeswoman, the company currently employs 150 people in Muncie and has ditched the 650 target, expecting to reach only 250 employees by the end of 2012. The spokeswoman blamed the sluggish hiring on the weak economy, but the path to creating even one job (never mind 650) has been a twisted one.

Progress Rail decided on building locomotives in America in April 2010. It then started negotiations with the Muncie-Delaware County Chamber of Commerce and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. Muncie's greatest asset in sealing the deal was the building itself. Originally used to make transformers for Westinghouse and then ABB, the factory had been used to store ketchup and as a Halloween house since the latter company left town in 1998. The 740,000 square-foot (69,000 square-metre) building has a 1,960 foot long main assembly floor, with a railway line running through the door—handy if you are making locomotives.

The two business-promotion organisations set loose such acronymic beasts as HBI, CREED, TIF and CDBG. They are all tax incentives of various kinds and the upshot is that Progress Rail will receive up to $11.1m in subsidies from the state and local governments. Unusually, the state tax credits were tied to capital investment, not to a job creation target. So those 250 jobs might end up costing $44,000 each.

Recruitment ads appeared shortly after Christmas 2010. Work One, a state employment agency, weeded out unsuitable applicants. The jobs drew hundreds of hopefuls, but Barbara Street, a Work One director, notes that there is a big gap between flipping burgers and working at a modern manufacturer. The local branch of Ivy Tech, a community college, agreed to create a three-week welding course to teach the specialised techniques Progress Rail uses. So specialised, in fact, that Bob Richwine, the head welding teacher at the college, said he had never heard of them, and so difficult that only experienced welders could attempt them. Between January and April this year, according to Mr Richwine just 30 welders took the course; the company was looking to hire 70.

Similar tales could be told of the experiences of Brevini, an Italian maker of wind turbine parts, and Magna, a new car-parts maker. If Muncie and similar cities are banking on manufacturing to restore their fortunes, they have a slow road ahead.