[kwhitefoot]

There has been an oversupply of transformer manufacturing plants in the world for decades. No one needs the Internet to start building more. The designs already exist and most of the small manufacturers are still using manual or at most semi-automatic winding machines. For large transformers this is true even in the big manufacturers like ABB and Hitachi. Stacking the cores can easily be done by hand.

The bottleneck would most likely be the supply of core steel. Increasing demands for efficiency have pushed core steel manufacturing into a few high tech manufacturers.

[Turskarama]

Other things you haven't considered:

Fuel pumps run on electricity, so you need to get them working before you can get any materials, everywhere, or you won't be able to fuel all the ships and trucks necessary to move anything.

Phone lines (and the internet) runs on electricity so you need to get them back up to coordinate everything.

While you are trying to rebuild your transformers most of the food we have in storage will rot. Think you can fix the grid fast enough to prevent all your factory workers leaving to forage?

It's incredibly naive to imagine that this is an easy problem to solve. The amount of stuff that you have subconsciously assumed to make this scenario work is staggering.

[xenadu02]

Yes... so priority will be to find diesel generators to get refineries back online. Individual pump stations will, if needed, scavenge solar panels or generators to get their own pumps up and running.

Governments will prioritize food and electrical infrastructure, likely banning transport of anything not critical to these two categories. Trucks traveling to transformer plants (and plants converted into switchgear plants) will carry food to the plant if necessary.

I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture... that everything will be OK everywhere. Some areas will manage better than others. Some areas may well turn into riot zones as people fight each other for food. Recovery will initially be spotty and uneven.

But I'm 100% confident it will not be a semi-permanent collapse of civilization. I'm also 100% confident some metro areas (and the farming areas nearest to them) will be back up and operational within 1-2 weeks up to 1-2 months depending on local circumstances.