I come from former Soviet Union. The education system there for railroad workers was and still is quite large. Every major city has a Railroad College. People go there after high school and graduate as conductors, signal and track workers, dispatch etc. Large cities also have Railroad Universities. There graduates with Bachelour’s Degrees work on new railway research and engineering. These colleges and universities used to be all state funded and still today they don’t cost an arm and a leg to go to.
Because in today’s Russia there is a still one large state-owned railroad these education institutions still exist and viable in producing new graduates. And these graduates can find a job on the railroad without a problem. The pay isn’t awesome and they may need to relocate but other than that they are secure in getting employment.
I am curious, does similar system exist in USA? Where do new railroad employees get their education? How does one become dispatcher, engineer, conductor?
Some universities offer transportation courses as part of their business degrees. These are geared more for management within the transportation industry and for logistics for business’s that rely on transportation. Two companies that did offer training courses for non-management are Modac Institute and Simmons-Boardman. I do not know if they are still both in business. Should be able to find a web site for each if they still exist.
CSX sends you to tech schools for roughly five weeks for condustor training. Then you have a couple weeks of field training before going out on the road with train crews to learn your territory. Norfolk Southern does something similar to that. NS doesn’t make you pay to go to school. CSX did at one time but I heard they stopped. I believe there are railroad schools that require you to pay several thousand dollars to attend. Then I guess you have to look for your own job after you finish. I’m not sure if they have job placement. Personally I think it’s a waste of money. If you apply with a class 1 railroad and they are interested in you they send you to whatever shcools they use for training. Most shortlines train you on the job with very little class training invloled.
Train and Engine service training is almost entirely handled in-house by UP, NS and CSX. BNSF is the notable exception, and continues to contract with Railroad Academies like Modac for their training. The RR Academies are best for someone who wants to work for a shortline and has about 7 grand to spend. NS does not hire RR U graduates, and CSX requires you to go through the in-house training program anyway.
Most of the technical departments, Signals, Communications, and Mechanical, generally require you to have previous experience in a related field.
I believe dispatchers are trained by the railroads in house also.You can check their websites for prerequisits.Most require air traffic controllers background or a college degree…
ATC background? I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be of much use anyway.
BNSF uses neighboring Tarrant County College to teach operating rules though the instruction is by BNSF officers. UP uses classroom time at the Harriman Dispatching Center. Otherwise the classroom is the dispatching office itself.
A college degree is not essential but it doesn’t necessarily hurt to have it. Railroads have for some time thought they get better results with employees that are ex-military, but again, it’s not a pre-requisite.
I would not stake my life on it but the last time I looked at UP website college was preferred and there was something on theirs or BNSF about ATC background…
30 seconds on Google later, here’s what I found. Neither BNSF or UP is saying a college degree is a pre-requisite.
Here’s what BNSF’s website says:
Applicants for Train Dispatcher at BNSF must have prior train dispatcher training or experience. Experienced train dispatchers should submit an on-line application at http://www.bnsf.com/careers/ for consideration.
A dispatcher training program is available through Tarrant County College (TCC) in Fort Worth, Texas. The program is available to the public. Certain prerequisites are required for admission. BNSF uses this program as a recruiting source. However, neither TCC, nor BNSF, can guarantee employment on completion of the program. For those interested, please contact (817) 515-7271 or write to:
We’re looking for applicants with superior interpersonal and analytical skills, able to speak clearly, read and understand operating and safety rules, exercise good judgement, analyze problems and take corrective action. Successful candidates will demonstrate a strong aptitude for utilizing information systems and thrive in a fast-paced, pressure-filled work environment with changing priorities. Multi tasking is a must. You must be able to identify and distinguish colors displayed on a video monitor and video display in order to read track labels, switch indicator lights and other safety sensitive indications. The most qualified applicants will possess a college degree or the equivalent in experience (Train Dispatcher or logistics line management). Strong preference will be given to a college degree in transportation, logistics, business administration, economics or en
It fits because these degrees develop skills in critical thinking, planning, and analysis. So do many other degrees such as quite a few in the liberal arts (geology, geography, history, political science, for example) but these degrees are deemed by many to be “more manly” and thus better matches to the railroad culture. There’s some truth to this; someone who finds engineering interesting is probably more likely to think railroading is interesting than someone whose first interest was music theory, but it’s just as easy to think these distinctions are more meaningful than they really are.
All things being equal, I’d rather have someone with a degree than not. But all things are never equal. Among the best railroaders I have ever met are men and women with advanced degrees in philosophy, English literature, finance, geology, and fine arts, as well as plenty of men and women who were born in a bunk car and never even graduated high school. Some of the worst railroaders I’ve ever met have degrees in business and engineering. The wonderful thing about railroading is it’s a tough playing field and sooner or later most of the nincompoops, malingerers, and jerks are chased out, or at least identified and isolated where they can’t do too much harm. The industry is not perfect at this but it’s better than most industries and business lines.
I guess I hadn’t thought about the dispatcher’s job as being an entry level position, leading to advancment. In that case, the education background makes sense. Why isn’t it a destination level position? It would seem the dispatcher could make or break a railroad.
As far as ATC background, I alwaus assumed the the job of a dispatcher would be similar to the role Lloyd Bridges played in Airplane : “Boy- I sure picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue”.
I think that there are widely available education/training offerings for railroad rank and file jobs-train and engine as discussed here and many programs for the skill positions in the mechanical and engineering (track and signal) departments.
Obviously colleges and university offer degree programs suitable as an education for most management and “home office” jobs with one possible short coming. I have been told that there is a shortage of railroad civil engineers. Not to say that a Civil Engineering degree doesn’t provide the basics, but the only school that I know of offering courses on the specifics of railroad civil engineering is the University of Illinois. Are there others?
Not to downplay railroad dispatcher job in any way but I would think whoever has worked in ATC would not want to go to work for railroad. Don’t ATC people get paid way more? It is one thing to coordinate trains carrying mostly coal and containers - and another thing to coordinate planes full of people in the air. And planes don’t have emergency brakes. Based on that alone ATC person would get paid way more, no?
Unless someone finds ATC job too stressfull and wants a change. But then train dispatch would be just as stressfull anyway?
Could I suggest that the train dispatcher is not even remotely what you think it is? The person in charge of making sure the train is handled correctly and safely is the engineer. Train dispatching is primarily a planning job. Air traffic control appears to me to be primarily a executing job, very similar to the old “control operator” jobs on railroads that have largely vanished with automation. The airline job that appears to me to be very similar to a train dispatcher’s job is the airline dispatcher, which is also primarily a planning job. Both train dispatcher and airline dispatcher have (1) only abstract visibility of what’s happening in the field; (2) must look hours and days into the future before making any decision; (3) must juggle complex economic decisions along with operational decisions; (4) work with a broad variety of people in a broad variety of jobs; (5) must consider complex interactions and dozens of “what ifs” at every moment; (6) seesaw between utter frustration and complete satisfaction.
As for pay:
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
“Air traffic controllers earn relatively high pay and have good benefits. Median annual earnings of air traffic controllers in May 2004 were $102,030. The middle 50 percent earned between $78,170 and $126,260. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $57,720, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $139,210.”
BLS does not break out train dispatchers separately but wages in the rail industry for dispatchers vary from $40,000 to $120,000 per year, with most in the $70,000 range. That can’t be compared directly because train dispatcher jobs are highly centralized into a very small number of locations, and many of those locations have very low housing costs. Air traffic control on the other hand has many jobs in very high cost housing areas with commensurately higher pay in order to attract people to the job.
Most of the ex ATC people that have gone into railroad dispatching are those that did it for the military. While some of the ATC jobs do pay more than a class one dispatcher, those are also the higher stress jobs, i.e. O’Hare or JFK. It takes a special kind of person to do that. Someone who works the tower in say Bloomington IL, will not be making as much as a railroad dispachter.
I would say about 85% of dispatchers have previous railroad experience, 5% were air traffic controllers and the other 10%hired off the street (most with military/police experience)
Dispatching is better than sitting on an old engine (where the door wont shut) without heat at 10 degrees doing 60mph for 8hrs. Iv been on the railroad for 10 years. ALL of which has been on the extraboard. 7 years on the dispatchers extraboard.
All in all (the railroad has been good to me) even though I still work all three shifts