There are at-home study courses, if that's an option for you. If you're just starting, you might actually consider a court reporting course first. Freelance reporters basically set their own hours. If you don't complete the reporting school, you can fall back on scoping - scopist training is, for the most part, a subset of court reporting (like, everything except the steno machine's speed requirements). One caveat: There's fine tuning involved, so if you're certain you want to get into scoping, an online scopist school might be the way to go.

Income is all over the map, depending on the level of service you offer and, oftentimes, the health of the court reporting profession in your area. You can get hardcore and earn close to 100k, if you like the pressure of working "live"; or you can go part-time and make a decent income for the hours involved.

Work volume is a matter of the resources available to you. You can explore locally to test market viability -- usually by just making a few phone calls. You can also explore job postings online to get a feel for the work-at-large. If you find employee-status work in a reporting firm, you know what your situation is. If you go freelance, you need to spend time to grow the clientele and business style you want to target, possibly by doing general work and honing in over time.

Hope that helps.

"If you always tell the truth, you won't have to remember what you said!"