The journeyman lineman test

1. Your apprenticeship’s step tests and final exam

Programs test you through the apprenticeship. Mo Valley requires every apprentice to take a Final Exam at its office; fail it twice and you’re suspended. Cal-Nev publishes study guides for all its outside-line step tests, built on ETA workbooks, the Lineman’s and Cableman’s guidebook, transformer connections and rigging. Ameren’s apprentices study the ALBAT book and test after each step, then must pass a journeyman exam.

2. The Mesa Hotline School certification

A standalone written exam: over 300 questions (true/false, multiple choice, short essay, equipment identification, transformer connections) with four hours allowed, then a ten-question oral exam. It’s given twice a year, in January and July, in Grand Junction, Colorado, and your employer must certify you’re working as a journeyman with at least 8,500 hours. Mesa says it’s “a certification test, not a journeyman qualification test.”

3. The Texas journeyman lineman license

Texas licenses journeyman linemen through TDLR. You need 7,000 hours in a DOL-approved apprenticeship, or three and a half years as a journeyman lineman in Texas, plus a $30 application fee and an exam given by PSI. The license is renewed every year, and it’s a limited license: “NOT the equivalent of a Journeyman Electrician license.”

4. Utility journey-level assessments

Utilities that hire experienced linemen may test them. AEP says journey-level distribution line workers must complete an additional assessment, and publishes a study guide for it.

Not there yet?

If you’re still trying to get in, the test that matters now is the entry test: the lineman aptitude test for union programs, or EEI CAST for utilities.