Submitted by DearGiraffe6168 t3_zr09tm in history
MerelyMortalModeling t1_j153mwj wrote
American here in the early US there was a strong early push to regimental and formalize rail road engineer education.
Peter Cooper was an inventor and self-described "tinkerer" who apprenticed as a coach maker at 17. He was noted be have an excellent command of letters and numbers which hints that he was well-educated at home. He went on to found several profitable businesses, had a respectable number of useful patents, founded the Cooper Union for the Advancements of Science and the Art which is still active and relevant to this discussion as he invented the 1st American locomotive the Tom Thumb, and served as its 1st engineer. Cooper put a premium on education and he had a strong influence on early railroad culture.
From the beginning American 1st rail company, the B&O had in house education and is one of the earliest companies that published data on its educational expenses. As early as the mid 1830s the B&O was paying experienced engineers to teach new prospective engineers and by the 1840s they were talking about curriculums.
Most potential engineers would start as menial laborers at a railroad at a young age. Literate kids who picked up numbers could get apprenticed in maintenance sheds and if they showed promise they could move on to be a fireman and would start being educated by their employers eventually working up to becoming an engineer. Specifics varied widely but the general arc was the same.
Another path was opened to men with formal education which involved running them through an in house program of engineering. When they finished they were rated to run a locomotive but the programs tended to be geared towards management. These men would spend some time on the rails but the idea was to give them practical experience they could use when later in their careers they were building timetables, managing groups of engineers etc.
Either way, by the the 1860s you had railroad companies lead by life long railmen who often had worked up through the ranks. These guys as a group valued formal education to such a degree that they pushed hard for the Morrill Act of 1862 which set aside government land and funds for education in the Mechnical and Agricultural arts.
the 1st Quarter Century of Steam Locomotives in America
The Education of Engineers in America before the Morrill Act of 1862
Reporting for Success: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Management Information, 1827-1856
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