News
Natl Signals Training Consortium Picks up Momentum as Courseware Nears Completion
Posted November 2015
The National Signals Training Consortium (the Consortium) met in Chicago last week. Don Orseno, CEO of the Metra commuter rail system, welcomed the group to Chicago. Orseno said that bringing labor and management experts together from across the industry is exactly the right way to build great training and promote needed learning across sites:
“I am very pleased to welcome this group to Metra and to Chicago. The Signals Consortium is engaged in a really unprecedented effort in rail and transit to bring together properties across the country and from different modes and from labor and management. All of us need help in improve our training for signals maintenance. Metra was a little slow to join the Consortium, but we hit the ground running, and our hosting this meeting reflects that. You know CEO’s get together frequently in this industry, and we learn from each other. Dramatic improvements can take place with frontline workers and trainers and supervisors meeting together and learning together. I look forward to the results of this week’s meeting and the continuing work of the Consortium.”
FTA Regional Administrator Marisol Simon also addressed the group citing the high priority of workforce training in recent FTA grants. In discussion with the group after her presentation, Ms. Simon also shared her experiences working for Amtrak and becoming the first woman to become a signals maintainer in the Northeast Corridor. She started out as a helper and didn’t like digging ditches, so she learned the craft. “The work you’re doing will make things much easier for the next Marisol who comes along and wants to learn signaling,” she concluded.
To date the Signals Consortium, composed of 20 mass transportation agencies and their unions, has called on their over 600 years of experience to develop over 350 hours of instructional material. Development of courseware for the entire training program is scheduled to be completed by Summer 2016, but this group has just gotten started! Future tasks include::
* Recruitment of women and veterans into signals maintenance jobs
* Piloting and refining courseware
* Supplementing courses with audio visual materials like instructional
videos
* Recruitment of more consortium members
A highly successful orientation meeting was held on the first day of the meeting for new and interested members (PowerPoint Presentation below). Severa.l new locations expressed interest in joining this dynamic group following this orientation meeting.
For more information:
* Courseware Samples on Transit Training Network
* Orientation PowerPoint Presentation
* The Center’s Facebook Page
* Contact Project Manager Mark Dysart
