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Working on America’s railroads has never been more technically demanding. Skills and judgment with a wide array of equipment and operating conditions are required, combined with detailed territory knowledge. Given the varied geography, operational philosophies and practices, and service requirements on North American railroads, there is no single training regime that fits all Class I railroads. But there are shared principles: the primacy of safety, mutually reinforcing classroom and hands-on instruction combined with simulator and on-the-job training; and the importance of learning local terrain and customer-service requirements. This common vision for training has contributed to the longest sustained record of safety improvement in many decades. Over the past three decades, the rail industry has reduced accident rates by 70 percent and employee injury rates by more than 80 percent. In 2007 alone, railroads experienced 406 fewer train accidents nationwide, a 13.7 percent reduction compared with 2006, making it the safest year in railroad history.
Investing in the Future
As rail traffic continues to grow and today’s generation of rail employees reaches retirement, the industry is hiring and training thousands of new operating employees. To meet these challenges, the nation’s largest railroads have invested many millions of dollars to improve and expand training. These investments include state-of-the-art training centers, education partnerships with colleges, and hardware and software to provide advanced computer-based learning and simulation experiences to prepare employees for a number of disciplines, from signal maintainers and trainmen to locomotive engineers. One major railroad, the Union Pacific, spent over $300 million in 2004-5 in wages and related compensation for trainees and employee coaches to prepare more than 9,700 new trainmen and engineers.
Advanced Learning Environments
CSX and Norfolk Southern, the largest Eastern railroads, operate major training facilities in central locations. CSX recently opened the Railroad Education & Development Institute in Atlanta, as a centerpiece of a $12 million commitment to training. NS’s training center in McDonough, Ga., is a model ISO 9000 compliant facility and runs a program that trains employees who are recognized by the industry as having achieved the best employee safety record among the nation’s major railroads. Both the CSX and NS facilities include classrooms, state-of-the-art simulators, and extensive yard track settings with dedicated locomotives and cars for live hands-on learning that complements computer-based instruction.
In addition to use of simulators and dedicated tracks and equipment for training, the Western railroads – BNSF and UP – have created partnerships with centrally located colleges among other approaches to advance training in a range of operations jobs. For example, BNSF’s Technical Training Center, founded in 1988, grew into the National Academy of Railroad Sciences (NARS) in Overland Park, Kan., a nationally recognized education center for the industry. The UP operates training programs at the Salt Lake City Training Center in partnership with a community college, and at other locations around its widely dispersed 33,000-mile network. UP is now setting up “closed yards” at major switching yards and terminals for hands-on training on dedicated equipment.
Rigorous Training Protocols
The railroads model their training curricula on best practices within the industry, benchmarking results against other highly skilled specialties such as airline pilot training, and oversight to ensure that the training reflects changes in technology and operating needs, and accident and injury experience. All railroad training protocols emphasize safety and learning at the location where the employee will be assigned to work.
It takes 3 ½ to 5 months on average to become a qualified trainman on one of the nation’s major railroads. Trainees must pass detailed tests on operating rules, safety requirements, air brake systems and signal/control systems; successfully pass rigorous and comprehensive promotion examinations; exhibit proficiency in specific operating and safety tasks and duties based on evaluations of specific criteria during a month of “shadowing” veteran trainmen; and finally, pass a local territory competency assessment by a senior supervisor for the local territory to which they will be assigned.
To qualify for locomotive engineer training, an employee first has to be a qualified trainman. Engineers then train for another six to 12 months on average, depending on the type and number of territories and operational challenges involved. Programs include time spent in the classroom and in simulators, honing judgment and reactions to the difficult scenarios engineers face at the controls of a locomotive, before being partnered with “engineer coaches” to learn the particulars of a territory to which they will be assigned. Here they learn the details of the route from A to B with all the terrain and train characteristics and every signal, switch, siding, local industry and yard in between, before reaching the final certification signoff from a senior supervisor in each territory.
Training Never Stops, Results Show
Training never stops for operating personnel. Engineers and trainmen must attend daily briefings on safety and receive updates before going on duty to verify they are aware of any changes in rules, maintenance schedules, or to administrative and operating conditions. They also must undergo an annual performance review which tests their knowledge of railroad operating rules.
Industry-wide safety data suggest that new operating employees are being taught well, as overall employee injury rates have continued to decline steadily, even in recent years as the railroads have hired and trained thousands of new operating employees. Such results indicate that these multi-pronged approaches to training are working as intended to create a modern, safer rail system.
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