I have always been fascinated with transportation and have dreamt of a career in the railways. Unfortunately, my home country is not exactly a model of rail transportation, so when I graduated from college in the United States, I knew that I had to move to Europe to pursue that career. I arrived at the University of Amsterdam in 2021 where I got my masters in European Policy with a focus on railway policy. As I was finishing up my thesis, I began submitting applications for internships, and to my great surprise, I got accepted to FTE for a traineeship, which began on September 12, 2022.
Beginning at FTE
My FTE experience began with a big trip, the first of many. I took my first ever night train to Bern, where I met half of the FTE team, and then took a night train to Vienna, where I met the rest of the team, as well as colleagues from the Working Group Passenger/Freight and Rail Net Europe. These initial experiences provided me with a fantastic introduction to the diverse topics that FTE works on. While my studies had provided a solid foundation, it became clear that there was still much to learn about the topics that FTE and its members deal with, and over my ten months at FTE I would receive comprehensive education and experience in all of these areas.
Just from this first trip, I was struck by the dedication and motivation displayed by everyone in our sector, including my colleagues at FTE, RNE, and, most importantly, our members. Observing their commitment during my first week, especially during the WG P/F meeting, where they passionately discussed and fought for their companies' interests, left a strong impression on me.
My Favorite Tasks
Over the course of my traineeship at FTE, I was fortunate to work on a wide range of engaging and formative tasks and go on several unforgettable business trips. Some of my most memorable tasks included:
- creating a stakeholder analysis
- contacting our members through email and in person to ensure our contacts were up to date
- assisting in the creation of a presentation about TCRs and their impact on our members which was presented at a meeting of railway regulatory bodies
- reading the entire TTR process description and assisting in the creation of a TTR teaching material presentation which was presented to our members and IMs at the proof of concept
- reading and analyzing all of the released 2026 capacity strategies, collecting further feedback from members and getting to present my findings in Vienna (presenting was probably the highlight of the entire traineeship)
Additionally, I had the opportunity to contribute to various other tasks, such as creating the FTE Wikipedia page, assisting with the website, conducting interviews with our Executive board members, providing support at FTE conferences in Ljubljana, and much more.
Takeaways
My time at FTE has been an extraordinary introduction to the professional world, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been part of this organization for the past ten months. The entire FTE team has shown genuine care for my development and growth, and the traineeship itself has been highly flexible and accommodating of my own interests and goals. I highly encourage anyone considering a traineeship at FTE to apply, you will have the privilege of meeting fascinating people, visiting interesting places, and actively participating in the European rail sector as a co-equal on the professional, passionate, and world-class FTE team. Additionally, any FTE Trainee can forget about interrailing, because you will get to travel by day and night train across Europe and do so with exceptional accommodations.
I will never forget my time at FTE, and I will miss my colleagues very much. Moving forward, my dream is to immigrate to Europe, become fluent in European languages, and work for a railway undertaking, infrastructure manager, or an international railway organization.