Congresswoman Visits College to Learn About Rail Jobs
A great collaboration between public and private entities.
That’s how 17th District Congresswoman Cheri Bustos described what she saw when she came to Galesburg today. The East Moline Democrat was at Carl Sandburg College’s Center for Manufacturing Excellence to observe the preparations made ahead of Sandburg offering a locomotive engineering program through the National Academy of Railroad Science, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The first classes will begin in the spring.
Bustos tells WGIL the program will help the most obvious job need here.
“The rail business is growing,” says Bustos. “We’ve seen a little bit of a roller coaster if you look historically at this line of work and some jobs have gone away, but it is on the upswing now so there are many jobs, they are good paying jobs. We learned that somebody can come out of this program here at Carl Sandburg College, start their career making $20 an hour and go up to $30 an hour in short order.”
Bustos says BNSF is looking to add at least 80 jobs in the coming year, and there may be more needed in places like Silvis.
Sandburg officials say as many as 15 students can go through the program at a time. A formal signing ceremony between Sandburg and the NARS is to be held next week.