Penn State Altoona is gearing up to produce the country's next generation of railroad engineers -- with $100,000 to help make it happen.
Norfolk Southern Corporation, one of the nation's biggest transportation companies, awarded Penn State Altoona with a $100,000 grant in mid-August to start a new baccalaureate degree program in railroad engineering, the first of its kind in the nation.
Rudy Husband, director of Norfolk Southern -- which operates 21,000 miles of railways throughout the United States -- said it made sense to give the grant to the campus.
"Our primary locomotive repair area is in Altoona," Husband said, where the company employs 950 people and serves 3,700 locomotives.
Andrew Vavreck, interim director of business operations at Penn State Altoona, said the program is a model of what he'd like to see more of. He plans to hire three new researchers.
"This is more than just a program that will attract more students to Altoona," Vavreck said. "It reaches back to our
history, it has real breadth in terms
of who we are involving."
The program is intended for civil and mechanical engineering students interested specifically in working in the railroad industry. Though the program has been in development for about four years, the proposal has yet to be finalized. Vavreck worked with Norfolk Southern and the College of Engineering for the past several years to develop the proposed program.
Penn State Altoona Chancellor Lori Bechtel-Wherry said she is optimistic about the program, but emphasized that it is still just a proposal -- it still needs to be approved by the University Faculty Senate and the Council on Undergraduate Education.
If the program is approved, Altoona will accept students for it next fall.
Husband said the program is important because existing engineering courses are not tailored specifically to railroad work. And there is a great need for a new supply of engineers, Bechtel-Wherry and Vavreck said.
"About 50 percent of mechanical and civil engineers will be retiring in the next three to five years, so there is a great need for them," Bechtel-Wherry said.
