With 140,000 miles of track across the country, U.S. railroads are vital arteries for the nation’s economy. But until now, they lacked a way to, well, train their professional staffs. No university-level engineering degree in rail and transit engineering has existed, until now.
Penn State Altoona, located near one of the nation’s most famous rail sites, Horseshoe Curve, aims to change that with its announcement of a four-year undergraduate degree program in rail and transit engineering. If approved by the faculty senate, the program would admit its first 30 students in the fall of 2010.
“Other schools may have a few courses. We are designing seven new courses from scratch,” says associate professor Andrew Vavreck. The program will include existing Penn State civil engineering courses,coupled with new customized courses in rail business, mechanicalsystems, track, operations, communications, and regulation. Vavreck says that the campus now enrolls over 400 engineering undergraduates, with one four-year program in electromechanical engineering technology. Many students transfer to other Penn State campuses after two years at Altoona.
The Norfolk Southern Foundation has given $100,000 to the school to help develop the four-year Rail and Transit Engineering (RTE) degree program. The Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum has offered the Penn State program space in a new roundhouse planned for the museum property.
Source: Andrew Vavreck
Writer: Chris O’Toole
