This collection of factories on the bank of the East River of Pictou has witnessed a large variety of industrial operations, ranging from steel making (the first steel plant in Canada), rolling mills, forging, shipbuilding, munitions manufacturing, rivets and bolts, and most recently (and longest lasting) rail cars.
The new plant sought markets in producing forgings for the booming railway industry, creating an intense demand for raw steel and iron.
With iron ore being shipped from Newfoundland and coal now being sourced in Cape Breton Island, the company was faced with high transportation costs, thus it was decided to construct a new integrated steel mill at Sydney Mines which opened in 1899.
SCOTIA also established the Dominion Wheel Foundry in 1913 on an adjacent site to Eastern Car Company and the steel mill and forge operation.
With the war entering a stalemate as the Central Powers were increasingly contained by the Allies in a brutal trench warfare on the Western Front, demand for steel began to decrease.
The fall-out from World War I and the collapse of new railway construction in Canada saw a syndicate of British investors led by Montreal, Quebec industrialist Roy M. Wolvin negotiate a takeover of SCOTIA's rival Dominion Steel Corporation in 1919.
Declines in the coal and steel industries during the 1950s saw the DOSCO conglomerate, once the largest private employer in the country, lose much of its previous financial clout.
Faced with the politically unpalatable option of one of the largest employers in Pictou County being closed, local MLA and Premier of Nova Scotia Donald Cameron opted to have the provincial government purchase the plant and operate it as an independent railcar manufacturer from January 1992 until February 1995 under the name Trenton Works Inc. while the government sought a new owner.
The new administration of Premier John Savage sought to improve the province's fiscal management and reduce liabilities such as Trenton Works and SYSCO, among others.
Greenbrier had previously purchased two railcar manufacturing plants in Mexico, which had substantially lower operating costs in terms of taxation and employee salaries and benefits.
All offers of assistance from the union and governments were rejected by Greenbrier on April 4, 2007, when the company announced that its TrentonWorks plant would close permanently later in the year once current orders are completed.
Following the closure of Greenbrier's railcar manufacturing operation at the facility in 2007, the provincial and federal governments began looking for a buyer to return industrial activity to the site.
On March 5, 2010, the provincial government announced an agreement had been reached with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) to reopen the plant and re-tool it to manufacture components for wind turbines.
In addition to global export potential of wind turbine components, there is a strong local demand growing for these products; Nova Scotia Power has been recently mandated by the Government of Nova Scotia to increase its green energy sources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and is predicted to be a major customer of the DSME wind turbines produced at TrentonWorks.
[2] The venture operated at the site using the logo DSTN and manufacturing towers for wind turbines, subsea structures for tidal power facilities, and pressure vessels for the oil and gas sector.
As of February 2018[update] the receivers were still looking for a buyer, with the commitment of $150,000 per month from the government to maintain the property expiring at the end of the fiscal year.