Role Model Videos: Career Options for Women -- Rail Transportation

The “Career Options for Women: Emerging Opportunities” videos introduce your female students to high-wage careers in traditionally male-dominated occupations. Each program reveals the personal experiences and insights of successful women in technology and trades occupations, and sends the all-important message to women and girls that the sky is the limit!

Rail Transportation

This 24 minute video features profiles of three women who have embarked on careers in the rail transportation industry.

• Brenda Cox, a yard foreman who loads and organizes rail cars for train assembly
• Rebecca Mann, a technical officer who tests the structural and mechanical limits of rail cars
• France Robert, an electronics systems technician who performs safety tests on passenger trains

Additional information from co-workers and supervisors supplements each job profile.

Developed in 2006, the Career Options for Women series is an outstanding resource for schools wanting to attract women and girls to science, technology and trades.

Note: These videos are interspersed with Canadian salary and labor statistics, which are similar to the numbers in the United States. As there is a no-return policy on these publications, please make sure to look at the preview video clip for the DVD(s) you are ordering.

Brenda -- Yard Foreman

Brenda Cox is a yard foreman. Brenda organizes rail cars for loading and assembly into trains that travel East, dropping cars off en route. She likens it to a chess game with extra big pieces to move around.

Brenda got her start with a major railway several years ago. She competed against hundreds of applicants and was one of only 12 people hired. Her first job interview was held at 3:00 a.m., just to give her an idea of what the shift work was like. She got the idea, and the job.

“What I like about my job is I have a lot of autonomy. As much as I am given instructions by somebody, it is up to me to figure out the best way to perform those tasks…”

Brenda is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Her pager may go off at any time and she will be expected to come to the yard within 2 hours. As Brenda gains seniority, she will know when she is going to work ahead of time.

Brenda's rail yard is part of an intermodal transportation network. What does that mean? Containers arrive by ship and are loaded onto rail cars. These are eventually unloaded and put on trucks for final delivery, or vice versa. Some containers are also transported by plane. Four modes of transportation: intermodal. Coordinating train movement to and from the ship docks is also part of Brenda's job.

Rebecca -- Technical Officer

How would you like to get paid to smash rail cars into each other? How about freeze them into something resembling a large ice cube? Maybe you'd prefer roaring around in a military vehicle to see what it can really take? That's just part of the fun at Rebecca Mann's workplace. She's a technical officer for the Centre for Surface Transportation Technology located near Ottawa, Ontario. Her job is to see what a rail car can really take.

Rebecca did a college field trip to the Centre and was very impressed with its facilities. So she applied, and applied, and applied. Finally she got a job in the railway department.

“I prefer hands-on tasks over theoretical work...The tests are different every time, so it's very interesting and exciting.”

Crashing rail cars together is only part of Rebecca's job. She's also been able to travel to Germany and the United States on business. The job's a good fit for the theory aspect of her university education and the more industry-oriented college program she attended.

France -- Electronic Systems Technician

Have you ever wondered what it takes to stop a rail car going 160 kilometers an hour? Just your hand, if it's pushing a button configured by electronic systems technician France Robert. France touches the lives of many simply by doing her job well.

France assembles and tests electronic systems for passenger trains. It takes a lot of concentration, attention to detail and patience. Some pieces are very tiny, so France has to be very good with her hands.