Road foreman of engines

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A road foreman of engines is the traditional title of the person in charge of and the supervisor of, a railroad engineer. An engineer who wishes to enter the management ranks on a railroad, becomes a road foreman of engines. His job is the overall supervision and to instruct, discipline, train a railroad engineer. He is essentially an engineers' boss.

In the United States, engineers are licensed by the Federal Railroad Administration for their craft. Railroads had to designate who can supervise an engineer. Since only a person who is a licensed engineer can instruct and supervise an engineer in his craft, the road foremen were designated as designated supervisor of locomotive engineers (DSLE).