I am a civil engineer applying my skills to the maintenance of railroad track.  There are only two universities in the United States that have specialized railway engineering programs (University of Illinois at Urbana\Champaign and Michigan Tech).  To spend two days on campus for a continuing education class that would benefit me is prohibitively expensive in terms of travel costs and time away from work.   Our professional organization, the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association (AREMA) has annual two-day conferences in Chicago and other cities across the US.  The AREMA presentations are good and valuable with regard to railway track, bridge, and other infrastructure construction and maintenance, but I do not know if they will quality for Continuing Education Credit.  Often the presentations are case studies of track and bridge problems, presented by professionals with tons of education in the school of hard knocks (responding to derailments at any time of the day or night, responding to flood damage and other natural catastrophes, and generally working their tails off 24/7).  My continuing education has been to buy and read textbooks and professional articles by the FRA's Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI), the Volpe Center, and other acknowledged experts in the field.  The point is that the CE requirement would not add anything to what I am do now except increase costs and time away from work, and likely would not be relevant to railroad ties, ballast, fastening systems, track geometry and other factors that are important in my work.