After reading the article about more colleges taking Railroad Engineering back up in this month’s Trains Magazine, it got me interested in maybe looking out for colleges that offer it. However, the magazine only told of a few. While I know that there aren’t a lot, does anyone know all of the colleges here in the US who offer railroad engineering, or a list of ones that do? Also, what colleges are interested in taking up this program? While I’m thinking of becoming a locomotive engineer myself, I’m sure this would look good, and who knows, maybe I’ll go into this.
Locomotive as in designing them, or want to work in Train Service?
If not the former, and it’s the latter, go work the ground and earn your way up.
I would channel your question to the Education Committee (C-24) at AREMA and then break up the question into smaller pieces, basically dealing with what discipline interests you (Railroad Engineering is a broad term). There is no “one stop shop” in the country. You have to go in knowing what you are going after.
(One Big-10 University engineering program seems to want to grind out trainmasters and other operating bubbas, not track or bridge engineers. Others have a program, but leave out key pieces which ought to be baseline requirements. Once you come out of a program, if you think you can kick back because you know-it-all, you are definately in the wrong profession. The degree is nothing but a tool and you had best be into full total railroad emersion for the next 20 years+)
Does anybody have any feedback on the program at Michigan Tech? There wouldn’t be very many distractions up there.
Try contacting Sacramento City Collellege in Sacramento, California.
I think both Michigan St. and Illinois (possibly Wisconny as well) have programs or did have programs. I still thank my lucky stars I’m a University of Iowa grad - and die-hard UCLA fan. [:)]
Michigan Tech has three seasons to distract a person.
Deer season(4 legs)
Dear season(2 legs
Beer season(rubber legs).
Kurt
It kinda has a Finnish perspective to it. The program is relatively new and has been very visible at AREMA the past few years.
It is amazing in this day and age that an individual cannot pick a school, pay his money and learn to operate locomotives.
Airline pilots start from Cessna 152s and work their way up to passenger jets through progressive training. A prospect for the airlines starts out on Cessna 152s and gets a private pilot’s license, then he gets an instrument rating, then becomes an instructor, then he goes to multi engine school, then he becomes a multi engine instructor. Then he gets the commercial rating and then the Air Transport Rating; the guy then builds time and when enough hours are reached, he can be hired in the right hand seat or the flight engineer’s seat. If the newbie sticks it out, keeps his nose clean and participates in recurring training, it is just a matter of time before he is flying the big jets carrying hundreds of people.
A person can actually pick this profession and if he has the money and time and motivation, the goal can be achieved. Not so for locomotive engineer. Why not?
TonyM.
And not just “railroad” engineering, but pretty much any branch. That’s why the EIT is called the “Fundamentals of Engineering” examination. The good engineers around learned about five times as much in the first four years of working than they did in four years of college. Unfortunately, knowledge is not necessarily a byproduct of education, which in engineering schools produces the ability to use the knowledge, not the knowledge itself.
Everything has a Finnish perspective to it up there (although I don’t exactly get what you mean in regards to this, though).
Department head was trained and raised in…students are expected to take a senior field trip to…
Tony,
Part of the reason is simply because there are no other disciplines or ratings for a locomotive engineer.
Unlike flight training, with single engine, multi engine, fixed wing or rotary craft, if you are a locomotive engineer, and can run an SW9, you can run a SD90.
Making a locomotive perform its basic functions is, relatively speaking, easy, they all operate in the same basic fashion…on the other hand, making a 120 car mixed train behave on changing territory is different, and you can’t train for that, other than the on hands training of actually working the job.
Which is why every railroad has its own training program, and every railroad makes it engineer trainees run on most, if not all of its territory, before a qualifying run with the Road Foreman of Engines, who grants you a license.
And there are a few “Locomotive Engineer Schools” out there, but no matter which one you attend, you will start out on any Class1 as the lowest life form in the food chain, a brakeman or conductor trainee, and work your way up to the engineer’s seat from there.
The nation wide union contract set it up this way based on seniority, and it serves another purpose besides giving the oldest guy first pick…it forces everyone to have to work the ground, pounding rocks for a few years and learning the basics of railroading, the hands on, getting dirty “why we do things this way” approach.
So once you are up on the seat box, you know why your conductor is doing what he is doing, and what to expect next, because you did it yourself for a few years.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to work with an engineer who hadn’t pulled pins or lined switches, worked an industry or switched in a yard…his experience combines with mine to make things work a lot safer, and he knows what to watch out for from up there.
And with the lowered retirement age, (60 years old with 30 years service) enough old heads have left the industry
edblysard,
Thanks for the great answer. It makes a lot of sense to have a guy who understands all the operations that are going on around him while he is operating the locomotive. And I kind of suspected that the railroads wanted to teach guys at their own schools and their own way based on the systems, equipment and lines that they run. Thanks.
TonyM.
Gotcha. My wife is from Ishpeming and about as Finnish as they come.
What we are talking about is college degrees in railroad engineering. Most of the engineering schools have core departments of civil engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering and mechanical engineering engineering although some of the larger engineering schools may offer additional core disciplines such as chemical engineering and aeronautical and aerospace engineering; still other engineering schools may combine departments such mechanical and aerospace engineering.
The railroad engineering curriculum would most likely cross some of the previously mentioned core engineering disciplines that were mentioned above, but I don’t see engineering schools establishing separate departments of railroad engineering that would lead to bachelor’s degrees in railroad engineering because that field is too specialized, and the railroads who employ degreed engineers can probably continue to get the engineers that they need who are trained as civil, mechanical, or electrical engineers. That is not to say that courses pertaining to railroad engineering applications might not be offered as electives or in continuing education courses.
If I recall correctly Purdue and the University of Illinois did offer courses in railroad engineering, but I think they were in their electrical engineering departments. The civil engineering department in my graduate school, Columbia University, offered a course in transportation engineering, but I don’t know how much of it applied to rail transportation. The electrical engineering department of my alma mater, George Washington University, offered a course called electric traction which was taught by the chief engineer of the Capitol Transit Company back when Washington, DC had streetcars.
The possible objection on the part of engineering schools to offering a railroad engineering curriculum is the need to present courses that impart the basic engineering principles that there is simply no room for courses that are applied. W
I am a Civil Engineering graduate of the University of Illinois. My B.S.C.E included a specialization in Transportation and Railroad Engineering. My actual work with railroads was Civil Engineering oriented and included bridges, embankments, structures, etc.
The Civil Engineering Department at the University of Illinois has had a Railroad Civil Engineering Program continuously for over 100 years. It is currently under the direction of Dr. Christopher Barkan. It’s website is:
cee.uiuc.edu/railroad
Bob