Training Facilities & Equipment
We have the most advanced facilities and equipment.
NARS has the largest and most extensively equipped railroad job education facilities, including the most locomotive simulators in North America.
We emphasize performance-oriented training based on the value of learning by doing. Within JCCC, our facilities occupy 130,000 square feet of office, classroom, laboratory, and multimedia studio space. Here, NARS teaches basic and advanced skills to potential new employees and current railroad employees in virtually every industry craft.
Whenever possible, our students are exposed to laboratory conditions and simulated situations that duplicate on-the-job requirements. Each craft has its own extensive facilities, laboratories, equipment and resources:
- Conductors learn and practice skills in an outdoor train yard, complete with various types of operating locomotives and freight cars.
- Mechanical employees train in workshops, including a freight car lab, locomotive lab, and locomotive electrical. Each lab is fully equipped to provide hands on experience with mechanical and electrical components of cars and engines.
- Maintenance and engineering crews work on an open air track lab outfitted with rails and ties. This area also has a fully operative locomotive crane.
- Signal operators train on the actual signals, electronic switches and computer apparatus they will install and service in the field.
- Telecommunications specialists learn and practice on the precise equipment they will encounter on the job.
We also offer NetSim, a network of locomotive simulators placed in satellite locations across the country. Through NetSim, engineers train on regional simulators like those at our facility at JCCC.