Three regional transportation workforce centers based at university transportation centers at montana state, university of memphis and CSU long beach will lead multidisciplinary rail workforce…

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) awarded Montana State University $8.03 million under the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program (CFDA 20.325) on August 1, 2025, to establish three regional transportation workforce centers that will conduct multidisciplinary rail workforce capacity-building activities through August 2030. The project centers, based at Montana State University, the University of Memphis, and California State University Long Beach, will lead industry-guided initiatives designed to increase faculty, student, and youth engagement with rail-related topics and skillsets. The centers will engage industry representatives and educational institutions in multisector partnerships to assess existing and projected regional rail workforce needs, develop career awareness and training programs, and address recruitment and retention challenges across rail service providers.

Deliverables include comprehensive documentation of local rail career pathways connecting place-based job opportunities with available education and training programs; establishment of a Rail Faculty Fellows Program to engage multidisciplinary faculty in developing project-based learning course activities focused on real-world rail challenges; hosting of summer rail academies for youth; and creation of a partnership resource toolkit to strengthen connections among industry, educators, and labor organizations. A critical project component involves developing a methodology for measuring project impact on local hiring and investment decisions, enabling multisector groups to assess long-term workforce and community economic development benefits. These outputs will serve local communities within each university region and provide scalable resources and evaluation frameworks applicable to rail workforce development efforts nationwide.

Three regional transportation workforce centers based at university transportation centers at montana state, university of memphis and CSU long beach will lead multidisciplinary rail workforce capacity-building activities focused on increasing faculty, student, and youth engagement with rail-related topics and skillsets. The project will include multidisciplinary rail workforce capacity-building activities that are guided by industry advisors and focused on increasing faculty, student, and youth engagement with rail-related topics and skillsets. The university centers will engage industry representatives and education institutions in multisector partnerships designed to characterize existing and projected regional rail workforce and training needs and to develop industry-education partnerships to address career awareness, training, recruitment, and retention issues. The project will create local talent pools to fill emerging vacancies in communities, which will benefit all rail service providers. The project will include documentation of local rail career pathways, focused on connecting place-based job opportunities with locally available education and training programs. Establishment of a rail faculty fellows program to engage multidisciplinary faculty and teachers in the development and implementation of project-based learning (PBL) course activities and modules focused on a local, real-world rail challenge presented by industry. Host summer rail academies for youth. Create a resource to foster partnerships between industry, educators, and labor organizations and to strengthen local career pathways into rail. Importantly, the toolkit will develop a methodology for measuring project impact on local hiring and investment decisions, which multisector groups can adopt for long-term assessment of workforce and community economic development benefits. The beneficiaries include communities local to the stakeholder as well as across the nation as the methodology and evaluation mechanisms to coordinate and disseminate workforce resources, products, and evidence-based practices resulting from project activities that can be shared nationally to facilitate replication.