I am interested in getting into a career as a locomotive engineer (in Canada) and I was wondering what the process is, and what and where training facilities are available. I’ve had difficulty finding anything in internet searches, so I was hoping some of you experts could give me a hand.
Tim,
There’s gotta be a hundred posts on this thread already on the subject. Just go ahead and do some searching, and then if you have any more questions in particular go ahead and ask. It helped me a lot to do some reading on this forum.
There is a railroader training school in Alturas, California, called the Modoc Academy. There are probably similar schools in Canada.Good luck in your new career[:)]!
Here is a link to Norfolk Southern’s Homepage…even though it doesn’t cover Canada, if you go to the Careers page, it will give you an idea of what an average Railroad expects of a person interested in engine service. http://www.nscorp.com Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown
If you want to get into the railway biz in Canada, Trade schools throughout the country now offer Conductor Training Programs.
They are all overseen by the Railway Association of Canada.
Schools Currently Participating –
BCIT (Vancouver, British Columbia)
SAIT (Calgary, Alberta)
George Brown City College (Toronto, Ontario)
These are all Conductor training classes, generally speaking you have to hire on as a conductor before you can undergo locomotive engineer training with a railway.
THayman, I am also interested in becoming a locomotive engineer. If you’re on MSN or hotmail, add me (dragonslayer87_@hotmail.com), if you want to chat about it[8D]. I don’t know a whole lot about the colleges/schools and training programs, except that the conducter program usually lasts six months, and takes place, as macguy said, in RAC approved schools accross the country. Apparently CPR is doing a lot of highschool graduate recruiting right now, and will be for the next two years or so-- my friend got into the program just recently. Here is a few sites that I have found:
Institute of Railway Technology:
http://www.irtcanada.net/en_AboutIRT.htm
CPR careers page (Click on “General Public” >> “Careers”):
http://www8.cpr.ca/cms/English/default.htm
CareerMatters (with career information):
http://www.careermatters.org
good luck
first off…you need to get hired onto a railroad…once you get a job and become a quilfed trainman of some kind…then when they want you to go to engineers school…they will call you into the engineers training program…as far as privet schools that teach it… if thier are any out thier… you will still have to go through what ever railroad you should get a job withs engineer training program… evey railroad trains its engineers a certian way…and regardless of where you got your training…they will “reprogam” you to thier way of doing things…
csx engineer