Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers

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**BLE**
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
Founded	1863
Date dissolved	2005
Merged into	Teamsters
Members	55,000
Country	United States, Canada
Affiliation	AFL-CIO, CLC
Website	www.ble.org

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) was a labor union founded in Marshall, Michigan on May 8, 1863, as The Brotherhood of the Footboard; a year later, its name was changed to The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. It had members in the Eastern half of the United States and parts of Canada. It was the senior national labor organization in the United States, and North America's oldest rail labor union.

Conductors were able to enter, but the union was not specialized to deal with their issues.

The BLE eventually merged with the Teamsters (in 2004) to become the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), a Division of the Rail Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT).