User:Roadcap2/sandbox

RailTEC is the Railroad Transportation and Engineering Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is part of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the UIUC College of Engineering, and awards Undergraduate and Graduate level degrees. RailTEC faculty also lead the National University Rail (NURail) Center, a Tier-1 University Transportation Center under the United States Department of Transportation Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research & Technology (OST-R) program. RailTEC's stated goals are threefold: to offer a strong railroad engineering curriculum to students, to research critical issues in railroad engineering, and to provide government and industry with the expertise gained from this research.

Education
RailTEC faculty offer 14 classes at both the graduate and undergraduate level. These include courses in track engineering, signaling and control, project design and construction, high-speed railroad construction and management, safety and risk analysis, and terminal design and operations.

Research
The Railroad Engineering faculty are engaged in several areas of research, including advanced track engineering and railway track components, rail network capacity analysis, operational practice and efficiency research, safety and risk analysis, and more. Because the University of Illinois is a research-focused institution, special emphasis is placed on involving both graduates and undergraduates in this research, and most graduate students lead research of their own.

Conferences and Events
RailTEC hosts several conferences and events throughout the year to further education and research related to the railroad industry. Among these is the Railroad Environmental Conference, which is held annually in October. This conference unites professionals across the railroad industry and has presentations covering topics such as environmental risk and remediation,emissions and air quality, pollution prevention, and compliance. RailTEC also hosts William W. Hay seminars several Fridays during the Fall and Spring Semesters. These seminars are lunchtime presentations intended for both students and the public, and can be on any topic in Railroad engineering.