Owen Merle will tell anyone who listens that he has a passion for trains. Always has. For the next four years, the 2023 graduate of Verona High School will be building on that passion at a college located near one of the biggest milestones in American railroad innovation.
Merle is enrolled at Penn State Altoona, which offers the country’s first and only four-year major in rail transportation engineering, both freight and passenger. The campus is about two miles, as the crow flies, from Horseshoe Curve, a triple-track bend that has been getting trains up and over Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains since 1854. It was an engineering marvel when it opened and it still serves dozens of freight trains daily on Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Line.
The Horseshoe Curve has been a big part of Merle’s self-education in railroads over the years. But he also read as widely as he could, and watched whatever there was to watch about railroading on YouTube. He drew on that knowledge in his application to the Penn State program, as well as his two years of high school algebra and a year of geometry.
Right now, Merle thinks he might want to drive a locomotive after graduation, but he knows that the program will give him a wide range of choices for freight and passenger rail jobs. Coursework covers railroad infrastructure and rolling stock safety, as well as energy efficiency, data analytics and railway network analysis, among other topics. And though it might not always seem so when you’re stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike behind a string of cargo-carrying trucks, the United States has the world’s largest rail transport network, with about 160,000 miles of track.
There are plenty of opportunities for working on a railroad. The program’s promotional materials say that, in the current employment market, there are about 50 openings for each of its graduates every year and that students typically receive multiple job offers before graduation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the starting pay for someone in the railroad field was $64,150 in 2021. That should do a lot to defray the cost of this education: Tuition, fees and room and board at Penn State Altoona are just under $40,000 a year for out-of-state students; scholarships are available specifically for the railroad program.
U.S. railroads can and do hire workers straight out of high school, but the industry–which employs more than 167,000 people–needed more than that, and more than what existing two-year associate’s degree programs would provide. Altoona Associate Professor Steve Dillen says rail companies approached the college in 2011 with a request for a four-year civil engineering program that would meet their needs. The country’s biggest railroads serve on the program’s advisory board, as well as many transportation technology companies, which helps to extend the education well beyond the classroom: The 42 students now enrolled have plenty of hands-on internships to choose from every summer.
“The railroads are looking for individuals who are quick on their feet,” says Dillen, “someone who is a leader and can get the job done.”
Merle says his fellow VHS students and teachers were surprised by his higher education choice “in a good way.” “They thought it was cool,” he adds. The application for Penn State Altoona is handled through the main portal for Penn State, and the central campus is about 90 minutes northeast of Altoona.
“I would recommend going to Penn State Altoona,” Merle says. “The campus is beautiful and the people are nice.” And, he should have added, it’s only a train ride from home.
“What’s Next” is a series of profiles about what members of each Verona High School class do after graduation. MyVeronaNJ has been publishing the series since 2010 and you can read all of them here.
GOOD JOB OWEN