News
Celebrating a Decade of the National Signals Training Consortium
Posted May 2023
Ten years ago, a group of subject matter experts and principals from agencies and unions around the country gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland to kick off a project that some thought would never make it past lunch – the National Signals Training Consortium.
On May 29, 2013, the Consortium was founded to address the upcoming workforce and skills shortage caused by retirements, public transportation systems expansions, and new technologies. To achieve this, the group has worked together to create a nationally recognized, standardized hands-on and classroom training program for signal maintainers, which is recognized by the industry and relevant unions. Ten years later, the group is stronger than ever.
Key accomplishments include:
- Developing over 600 hours of instructional materials:
- 29 instruction-ready classroom-based courses
- 75+ mentor checklists to be used for refresher training
- Instructional videos
- Interactive, online troubleshooting scenarios
- Developing inventory of technologies at each location
- Sharing best practices around training techniques, mentoring practices, assessments, etc.
- Drafting and gaining approval by the Department of Labor for a signal maintainer apprenticeship framework
- Achieving college credit recommendation for the program from the National College Credit Recommendation Service
- Being recognized as a model training program by the Federal Railroad Administration
- Continuing to be the ONLY forum for signal maintainer frontline workers, trainers, and supervisors to collaborate and network
For more information:
- Preview the courses available on the Transportation Learning Network.
- Contact Project Manager Julie Deibel-Pundt at jdeibelpundt@transportcenter.org.
- See this flyer with information on upcoming meetings of this and other rail maintenance training consortiums.
The first meeting of the National Signals Training Consortium May 29 - 30, 2013
