"This is a blue-collar trade that nobody thinks about," Rangel said. "There's too many Gen-Xers that want to stay home in their underwear and be Internet millionaires."
Grupp, the academy's precocious trainer, who says he has railroading "in my blood," concedes that he'll eventually be tempted with a job driving his own train -- a tough job, but one that can pay $60,000 or more and carries full benefits.
Burlington Northern and the nation's largest railroad, Union Pacific, are both trying to turn the rash of retirements into an opportunity to introduce diversity into the railroad, long a mainstay of white men.
Ninety-four percent of Burlington Northern's staff is male, and 83% is white, a reality the company is trying to change by attending Native American powwows and hiring women into its trainee programs.
"We still are a vestige of the way the country employed 30 years ago," Klug said.
Barb Schaefer, Union Pacific's senior vice president of human resources, recently described today's environment as a chance to "drive the most significant cultural change the railroad has seen in generations."
Fifty years ago, the railroads employed 1.2 million workers; in 2000, faced with competition from airlines and truckers, they employed just less than 250,000.
Although further contraction is expected, there is still plenty of room for schools such as Modoc and the Overland Park, Kan.-based National Academy of Railroad Sciences to train replacement workers.
Andy Burton, the director of the Kansas academy, said his program was seeking a $2-million federal grant to build a new rail yard to train the influx of new students.
Despite its location in "Dorothy and Toto land," as Burton put it, the academy is being overwhelmed with new students. "We may be required to do three eight-hour shifts of school just to meet the need," he said.
