Description
Plan, design, and oversee construction and maintenance of railroad infrastructure, including track, yards, stations, bridges, tunnels, grade crossings, and corridor drainage and structures, ensuring safety, reliability, and regulatory compliance.
- • Compute track geometry (grade, curvature, superelevation), axle loads, and ballast/subgrade stresses to set design specifications.
- • Inspect rail corridors and project sites to monitor progress and verify conformance with design, FRA standards, and safety procedures.
- • Direct or perform surveying and layout for track alignments, profiles, turnouts, and structure elevations.
- • Estimate quantities and costs for rail, ties, ballast, earthwork, structures, and labor to evaluate project feasibility.
- • Prepare or present reports and permit packages for bid proposals, environmental assessments, grade-crossing changes, and right-of-way actions.
- • Test ballast, subgrade soils, concrete, asphalt, steel rail, and fasteners to verify strength and durability.
- • Analyze train operations, capacity, and schedules, and assess noise, vibration, and air quality impacts.
- • Design rail alignments, trackwork, and structures that reduce energy use and minimize environmental impacts.
- • Design stormwater, drainage, and spill containment systems for rail corridors, shops, and fueling facilities.
- • Develop remediation and site stabilization plans for contaminated rail corridors or accident sites.
- • Direct engineering activities to ensure compliance with FRA, DOT, ADA, environmental regulations, and railroad standards such as AREMA.
- • Identify corridor risks such as slope instability, flooding, erosion, and at-grade crossing hazards, and develop mitigation measures.
- • Provide technical guidance to operations, maintenance-of-way, and construction personnel, and coordinate with signaling and electrification teams.
- • Manage and coordinate construction and maintenance activities, including track renewal, surfacing, ballast tamping, and bridge or tunnel rehabilitation.
- • Plan and design track, yards, stations, bridges, tunnels, and drainage using CAD/BIM and rail geometry software.
- • Analyze survey, geotechnical, topographic, utility, and right-of-way data, as well as maps and aerial imagery, to support route selection and design.
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Last reviewed: Jan 2026
