Current RailTEC students and faculty attended the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) 2024 Annual Conference & Expo on 15-18 September at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville. In addition, many RailTEC alumni were also in attendance and played a key role in the schedule.
Three of the five panelist participating in the Meet the Next Generation Panel were Illinois RailTEC graduates. During the session Marcelo Suarez (Civil Engineer, Hanson), Dan Mueller (Associate Engineer, Metro North Railroad New York) and Manuel Ramos (Senior Rail Engineer, Arup) discussed the types of projects they have worked on, the career paths they have taken, and answered questions from the audience. On Tuesday, 17 September, Tom Roadcap, PE, a Senior Engineer in Design and Construction with Brightline West, presented “Brightline Florida Project: Design and Construction of Higher-Speed Rail Infrastructure for a Shared Corridor” during the Passenger & Transit Technical Session and Nao Nishio, Manager of Engineering Technology with Brightline, gave a maintenance-of-way presentation on “Benefits and Challenges of Autonomous Track Inspection Technologies for a Higher-Speed Railroad Network” on Wednesday, 18 September.
This year the Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence was given to the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Main Line Expansion Project which was led by Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Arup-Jacobs Engineering. Several RailTEC alumni participated in this project.
