Railway Track & Structures - November 2008 - (Page 23)

How to by Tom Judge, editor train for m/w From classrooms to DVDs to online, training’s many forms have never been more important W AREMA ith so many new people coming on the property and technology advancing, associations, private companies and academic institutions are striving to meet the industry’s need for training. “Committee 24-Training has two primary areas of activity: Education and Training,” said William Riehl of RailAmerica, vice chairman. “The education side focuses on all aspects of the professional development of railway engineers. The training side provides a working forum for maintenance-of-way training professionals to develop and exchange ideas to increase safety, quality and productivity through better training topics, methods and materials.” Committee 24 is working to set up a training cooperative. “The idea formed at a committee meeting in Calgary this past June,” said Brent Cheek of RailAmerica. “Our thoughts were to try to get some of the Class 1 training managers into a conference at the Salt Lake City conference. We did manage to get four Class 1 representatives there: Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX Transportation and Kansas City Southern. “This program is building onto a previous Committee 24, kind of a unified approach to regulatory training,” he said. “We thought instead of focusing on regulatory training, we would try to form an informal training cooperative where we would get together perhaps once a year to share ideas, perhaps training materials or concepts and so on. We’re hoping to have another mini conference at our next committee meeting in early 2009 to put some finishing touches on a presentation for Class 1 senior management to see if they’re willing to share their current training materials and best practices, as well as review some of the liability and legal issues there might be with sharing of material and making it more homogenous and generic. “This project is really in the early, conceptual stages,” Cheek pointed out. At the Salt Lake City conference, AREMA presented Introduction to Practical Railway Engineering. “This is a great program for young engineers,” Cheek said. “It gives them an excellent idea of what to expect when they get out in the field.” NARS The National Academy of Railroad Sciences’ philosophy is to be the provider of choice for performance improvement solutions that meet the business objectives of its customers. www.rtands.com “At NARS, we offer a complete line of training for maintenance-of-way, signal, telecom and structures, with many offering the added benefit of college credit, which varies from three credit hours for our two-week Welding and Signal courses, up to 16 credit hours for our Fast Track Signal (six-week) and Welding (eight-week) courses,” said Michael Drury, senior manager technical training, BNSF. “We also offer the only International Society of Certified Electrical Training and Building Industry Consulting Service International (Installer I / II and Technician) testing and certification facilities in the region. In addition to the latest in simulators, training material and up-to-date field and classroom instruction, we offer ‘hands-on’ instruction with the actual machinery, including, among others, the Jackson Tamper, Brandt RoadRailer, Locomotive Cranes and Boomequipped vehicles.” Drury continued: “NARS offers more than any other rail industry training resource and we stand behind the quality and value of our programs. We set the standard for rail education Rail welding class at NARS. Railway Track & Structures November 2008 23 http://www.rtands.com

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Railway Track and Structures Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D TrainingVvital in Shaping Future of Railroad Industry Switch Stands, Switch Machines Automation Offers Improvements in M/W Planning AREMA 2008 Conference Report Products and Literature People Calendar Advertisers Index Sales Representatives Website Directory Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - November 2008

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