26
The manager of engineer training stated that the time allotted for classroom courses taught in Chicago is 5 weeks. Up to 9 weeks is allotted for the classroom courses at the Wilmington facility, depending on whether apprentice engineers are given an additional 2 weeks of instruction for electric locomotives and 2 weeks of special instruction on Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee (NORAC) rules. He said that staff from the Amtrak rules department teach the NORAC rules in Wilmington; trainees assigned to the Chicago classes receive Amtrak rules instruction in their home division either before or after the engineers' classes. The manager of engineer training explained that one of the advantages of the Wilmington facility is that the classrooms are adjacent to the shops, he estimated that 15 to 20 percent of the class time there is hands-on teaching.
The apprentice engineers and recently trained engineers who had attended the classroom training made positive comments about the course, the instructors, and the evaluations they received. They said that the school puts a great deal of pressure on them to learn at a fast pace. One apprentice engineer recalled 14 to 15 quizzes in his class that required a score of 85 percent to pass. Class size was reportedly 5 to 12 members.
Physical Characteristics Familiarization—The training program requires qualification of apprentices on the significant characteristics of the territories over which they will operate. Familiarization is accomplished by having apprentices ride locomotives regularly on these routes, after which a rules examiner conducts an oral examination. If the apprentices pass, they are "qualified" on those territories.
The coordinator for the Boston class stated that qualification of apprentice engineers on physical characteristics before they receive their classroom instruction is not essential. The system general road foreman testified that apprentices must qualify on physical characteristics before they are permitted to run a locomotive. The instructing engineers for apprentice OJT stated that trainees with a valid permit (head end pass) to ride the locomotive operate the train on the basis of the trainees' acquired skills. No engineers or apprentice engineers identified any documentation provided to show that they had passed qualification testing on the physical characteristics of their territories, and one apprentice said he had operated trains before being qualified. The apprentice engineer on Amtrak train 66 stated that he completed his physical characteristics qualification before attending the class.
One apprentice engineer questioned the time he was allotted for qualifying on physical characteristics and for learning train operation. He said that he had expected 8 months to complete his training program after the class and expressed concern to the system general road foreman that he would need 12 months. The apprentice also told Safety Board investigators that the time Amtrak allotted for learning the routes did not correspond to their difficulty. As an example, he recalled being allowed 8 weeks to learn the Boston to Springfield route and 14 days to learn the more difficult New Haven to Hartford line. He described the learning process for qualifying on the physical characteristics as studying, memorizing, and passing a test and cautioned that"it would be hard" for him to say that he actually knew the characteristics from these training procedures. The accident apprentice engineer's training class was the first in which successful completion of examinations on physical characteristics was required.
