Training and recruitment
Tackling a skills shortage F
As many of the railway industry’s leading lights approach retirement, a shortage of new talent is threatening to undermine technical progress at a critical time. Kevin Smith reports from the UIC’s recent 2nd World Congress on Rail Training on various initiatives underway to combat this problem.
OLLOWING decades of decline, the railway industry has arguably entered a new golden age in the 21st century. Ambitious plans for new rail projects are being proposed all over the world as, even in the face of a worldwide economic recession, governments and municipalities look increasingly to rail to solve their transport issues. Yet there might still be a problem. An ageing workforce coupled with a dearth of new talent to replace and further the latest technological thinking means that for certain projects there is only a small pool of engineers available. Soon it might be a case of first come, first served on certain schemes, preventing other similar projects from getting up and running even when the political will and funding exists. Delegates at the International Union of Railways’ (UIC) conference on railway training held in St Pölten, Austria discussed this dilemma in- depth with several presentations highlighting efforts to overcome the skills shortage.
It is clear that this is a problem
running through the industry, from the IRJ August 2013
railway operators, to the manufacturers, right down to the universities where young engineers are often inspired to choose a career on the railway. In Europe the situation has become especially acute due to fragmentation of the large state railways in the 1990s and the subsequent loss of established training schemes for young engineers. With more and more private operators filling specific niches in the market, comprehensive training programmes across various roles in a railway’s operations are no longer as widely available. Many established engineers are also being tempted to take their skills to lucrative markets such as the Middle East, to the detriment of European projects.
Nonetheless several initiatives are underway which aim to bridge this gap, such as the Skillrail project. Financed by the European Commission and supported by the UIC, the initiative established a European University of Railway (Eurail) in October 2011 which aims to offer research-based industry courses tailored to a specific need and overseen by the industry’s leading academic experts.
Skillrail’s coordinator Professor Manuel Pereira, from the department of mechanical engineering at Lisbon’s Superior Technological Institute, says many academic courses are failing in the short-term to meet the direct needs of railways. In addition, when students first arrive in the industry they tend to have a rather limited knowledge of “real world problems.”
“Eurail aims to support the idea that the railway sector needs advanced engineering education connected with research and technological development,” Pereira says. “It is expected to enhance educational quality and relevance in the railway areas, foster the development of railway training and educational activities that complement the offerings of existing institutions.”
Skillrail and Eurail’s connection with the high-level expertise assembled in the European Rail Research Network of Excellence (Eurnex) scheme is crucial to delivering its programme. Launched in 2007, Eurnex comprises faculty from 47 higher education institutions in the EU member states offering railway-related courses.
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