Do Chief Engineers attend Command School ?

[Timo]

Any such officer must take the test simply to advance beyond the rank of Lieutenant Commander

This is highly unlikely - or in other words, it is highly unlikely that Admiral McCoy or Commander Pulaski ever took this test, given the nature of their characters.

More probably, the test can be undertaken at any point of a blueshirt's career, and passing it results in a number of brownie points that can be used for furthering one's career - say, getting a promotion from LtCmdr to Cmdr, or from Ensign to Lt(jg), or just securing a meatier assignment.

Also probably, there are any number of tests a blueshirt can take to collect the brownie points, so that Pulaski might have gathered them by writing enough scientific papers, McCoy by completing a course on Vulcan physiology, and so forth.

let alone actually *get* command experience.

Now this is more like it. And I'm convinced that Bashir took the test early on, just because he could, and thus qualifies for all sorts of command-your-own-runabout assignments where an ordinary medic would require a chaperon. Other high-performing students probably opt for a course like this early on, too, to get important command positions: one wonders if Elizabeth Lense didn't have to have training like this to get accepted as the CMO of a mighty Nebula straight from the Academy.

Of course, we also know that one can wear blue and still have full command training akin to Kirk's. Picard switched to blue in the alternate reality of "Tapestry". Spock wore blue after starting out with command gold. Saavik wore sciences grey (overlaid on command white) after taking what looked like Command School, and apparently served as Chief Science Officer on the Grissom - probably a situation nearly identical to that of Spock in TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Phoenicianknight]

As for Scotty taking command, if you think bank in your memory banks, you wil remember that Scotty wore Command Gold the first few episodes of Seaon 1. So, at one point her was in the "COmmand Track".

 

[Timo]

...Except that he didn't. He wore brown in the pilot episode "Where No Man..", and brown was replaced by red in the subsequent regular episodes. The command shirt worn by Kirk and Spock in that pilot was a separate, more golden color, although rather difficult to tell apart from the brown in broadcast TV.

Uhura was the character who switched from gold to red during the early regular episodes. Spock switched from gold to blue as the regular episodes began. But Scotty always wore the "third color", which just happened to turn from brown to red as the series moved past the pilot.

OTOH, Scotty wore what we know would call the Sciences insignia (atomic model) on his brown shirt in the pilot, while his red shirt in the regular episodes sported the Engineering insignia (broken spiral). Make of that what you will.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[erastus25]

OTOH, Scotty wore what we know would call the Sciences insignia (atomic model) on his brown shirt in the pilot, while his red shirt in the regular episodes sported the Engineering insignia (broken spiral). Make of that what you will.

Timo Saloniemi

Except in The Lights of Zetar where he very clearly had a red tunic with a sciences insignia. But that was almost certainly a mistake.

 

[Red Ranger]

^Regarding Bashir -- pardon the digression -- we know he at least is trained as a helm officer. In The Search, Part 1, he takes the helm when the officer piloting Defiant is killed. And he knows enough to execute specific evasive patterns.

Now, back to the O.P. I don't think it's ever specifically stated if engineers take any kind of special command school course. Most of the chief engineers we've seen -- esp. Scotty, Geordi, and Trip -- have taken command. So by inference, I'd say they must have received that kind of command/line officer training.

As I recall, Sisko got his start in engineering, as well, as Admiral Leyton relates in Homefront, and says he was responsible for getting Sisko on the command track when they served on the Okinawa together.

Red Ranger

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^Regarding Bashir -- pardon the digression -- we know he at least is trained as a helm officer. In The Search, Part 1, he takes the helm when the officer piloting Defiant is killed. And he knows enough to execute specific evasive patterns.

In "Armageddon Game" Bashir says that he took command courses, but AFAIK only basic ones for use in emergencies.

 

[EmoVulcan]

I know it's not canon but I always just... pretended... He was a special case and was basically given the power of a rank without the actual rank. Like an acting-lieutenant or something.

I don't think it would be hard to imagine that captains and Starfleet would give that kind of power to the brightest and best noncoms at least to some degree.

Basically that means that in most situations the engineers on most ships wouldn't have the opportunity or ability to take command and stuff.