Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Read the ladder vertically: each row is the wage of the Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers worker at that point in the distribution, so $70,130 at the 75th percentile means three quarters of the occupation earns less. Figures BLS cannot publish appear as n/p, and its top code prints as $239,200+.

Employment and concentration

With 12,460 jobs nationally, Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers make up 0.01% of U.S. employment as BLS measured it in May 2024. The map is uneven: Texas alone holds 2,050 of those jobs, the top three states hold 37.4%, and the deepest concentration sits in Wyoming (location quotient 15.40, where 1.00 is the national average). A quotient above 2 usually signals a local industry cluster rather than evenly spread demand.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $37,090 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($80,840) is 1.8 times the 10th percentile ($43,750), a gap of $37,090 a year. The mean of $63,170 sitting near the median of $65,480 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

Massachusetts posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $97,690, and Texas the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers stands number 653 by employment and number 325 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Transportation and Material Moving Occupations, the group median wage is $52,310 across 50 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 25% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.1% of the group's 13,645,590 jobs. In 7 of the 24 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $65,480, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN is the largest metro employer with 600 jobs, 4.8% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 5 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $67,010 a year, against $67,010 in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $65,480 works out to $5,457 a month before taxes, $2,518 per biweekly paycheck, and $1,259 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($51,730) to the 75th ($70,130) is worth $18,400 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Run the median through the paycheck calculator for a take-home estimate in your state, compare an offer against your current pay with the salary calculator, and check whether a raise actually beats prices with the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $72,028 would sit between the median ($65,480) and the 75th percentile ($70,130), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $51,730, is $13,750 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Transportation and Material Moving Occupations

Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Airfield Operations Specialists, Pump Operators, Except Wellhead Pumpers, Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians, Transportation Workers, All Other, Tank Car, Truck, and Ship Loaders, Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors. The full directory is on the Careers hub.