Railroad and Railway Transportation

Types of Degrees Railroad and Railway Transportation Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many railroad & railway transportation graduations there were for each degree level during the last year for which data was available.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Basic Certificate	54
Associate Degree	3

What Railroad and Railway Transportation Majors Need to Know

O*NET surveyed people in occupations related to railroad and railway transportation and asked them what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. The responses were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being most important.

Knowledge Areas for Railroad and Railway Transportation Majors

This major prepares you for careers in which these knowledge areas are important:

• Transportation - Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
• Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.

Skills for Railroad and Railway Transportation Majors

When studying railroad and railway transportation, you’ll learn many skills that will help you be successful in a wide range of jobs - even those that do not require a degree in the field. The following is a list of some of the most common skills needed for careers associated with this major:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Operation Monitoring - Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Operation and Control - Controlling operations of equipment or systems.

Abilities for Railroad and Railway Transportation Majors

Railroad and Railway Transportation majors often go into careers where the following abilities are vital:

• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Far Vision - The ability to see details at a distance.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

What Can You Do With a Railroad and Railway Transportation Major?

People with a railroad and railway transportation degree often go into the following careers:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
First-Line Supervisors of Transportation and Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators	6.6%	NA
Rail Transportation Workers	4.3%	$55,410
Rail Yard Engineers, Dinkey Operators, and Hostlers	4.5%	$52,630
Subway and Streetcar Operators	4.7%	$68,170

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Railroad and Railway Transportation

Some careers associated with railroad and railway transportation require an advanced degree while some may not even require a bachelor’s. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

Find out what the typical degree level is for railroad and railway transportation careers below.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	1.5%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	72.7%
Post-Secondary Certificate - awarded for training completed after high school (for example, in agriculture or natural resources, computer services, personal or culinary services, engineering technologies, healthcare, construction trades, mechanic and repair technologies, or precision production)	10.2%
Some College Courses	11.5%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	2.6%
Bachelor’s Degree	1.0%
Post-Master’s Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Master’s degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees at the doctoral level.	0.4%

Online Railroad and Railway Transportation Programs

The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	3	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	2	0
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	0	0
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Majors Related to Railroad and Railway Transportation

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to railroad and railway transportation.

Major	Number of Grads
Truck & Bus Driver/Commercial Vehicle Operator & Instructor	22,902
Construction/Heavy Equipment/Earthmoving Equipment Operation	943
Other Ground Transportation	134
Forklift Operation	79

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020

More about our data sources and methodologies.