Railroaders' Nostalgia > wages then and now

Switchman, ATSF 1973..$45.00 per day(with some special allowances)....now ?
Fireman on passenger train 1979...$99.00  for about 195 miles
engineer guaranteed board @$1575.00 per half in 1982......now?

As of today, 8 hours as a conductor on a remote control yard job (including all regular allowances): $330.57

This is for a short line, and not the national agreement rates of pay.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/24 17:24 by Brakey82.

Pool freight 100 miles Los Angeles to Santa Barbara was $ 29.00 in 1970.

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/24 11:50 by SanJoaquinEngr.

Brakey82 Wrote:
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> As of today, 8 hours as a conductor on a remote
> control yard job (including all regular
> allowances): $330.57
>
> This is for a short line, and not the national
> agreement rates of pay.


$41.32 an hour, not bad. I'm sure the IRS will enjoy their cut.

My "date" (day of first service) on Pacific Electric Ry as brakeman in 1962 paid $24.99 for basic day of 8 hours.
I was told by those in the know this was considerably higher than so-called 'normal' for a brakeman in most parts
of the country. 

Within 6 weeks, I left PE for a job as fireman on SP. My first day in yard service, with a single engine, (pay then was
based on weight on drivers), was $22.16 for 8 hours. Yard service paid the highest; lowest was "Roustabout" service
(a derivative of Local Freight service) which was down there around $18.00. Passenger service was somewhere slightly
above Roustabout--but you made it up in miles run which typically was greater than freight. 

Charlie

IIRC, in late 1977 a switchman made $59.64/day with air pay (95 cents). Around 1980, an engineer was making roughly $100 for eight hours at 5 day yard rate and the lowest weight on drivers. This included 20 minutes engine prep time. I don't recall what 100 miles through freight paid.

I honestly don't remember what the daily rate was when I retired. Back then, the NS engineers were still on-property. And I rarely worked a job that didn't make one or more arbitraries. Being on former Wabash territory had it's advantages.

1972, SP Western Lines student brakeman made a flat $12.80 per day regardless of how many hours worked. My first student brakeman trips were on the Gilroy Local out of San Jose with a great crew who worked 14-hours a day (before the HOS was reduced to 12-hours) and they had a lot of fun teasing me about not even making $1 per hour in wages. Great crew though.

Back in the day it was the benefits that offset the wages making the entire compensation package quite lucrative. Today, we pay our fair share, and then some, for the mediocre benefits we receive. I won't even get into how Biden-era inflation more than wiped out our last wage increase that came 5 years past due.

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Back in the day it was the benefits that offset
> the wages making the entire compensation package
> quite lucrative. Today, we pay our fair share, and
> then some, for the mediocre benefits we receive. I
> won't even get into how Biden-era inflation more
> than wiped out our last wage increase that came 5
> years past due.

Corporate profits are record high - way beyond record high. They blame inflation on wages and people fall for it.

TAW

B&OCT McCook tower in 1967 - $3.035 ($.01 still had enough value that fractions were counted) is $28.59 now according to an inflation calculator. 75th Street was a whopping $3.1275 - $29.43 today. That came with full comprehensive medical and dental coverage (the Travelers policies). I don't remember my starting train dispatcher wage in 1969, but it was just shy of $5, about $42 today. I was making more than my parents combined (Montgy. Ward and Henrici's Oakbrook).

TAW

My first engineer ticket was in spring 1972.  As an outside hostler I had to go pull in an outlawed SCL pig train (the"Razorback").  That boosted me to yard engineer rate and I still kept a hostler penalty payment.  For that I got around $35.  Toward the end - about 50 years later, my highest ticket was on an outlawed and eventually towed in all night road switcher.  Straightaway it was $705.01 plus later bonuses paid on that amounting to 17%.  

First day as an outside hostler on the SCL was $39.82, $41.41 with late minutes. This was 7 days a week, in 1973. I had quit a job teaching that paid $500 a Month. I was making over twice what a teacher made. A firing job would pay aroud $1000 a half. I've forgotten what my first engineer's job paid, and my last day. Oh well.

Sam

Railbaron Wrote:
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> 1972, SP Western Lines student brakeman made a
> flat $12.80 per day regardless of how many hours
> worked. My first student brakeman trips were on
> the Gilroy Local out of San Jose with a great crew
> who worked 14-hours a day (before the HOS was
> reduced to 12-hours) and they had a lot of fun
> teasing me about not even making $1 per hour in
> wages. Great crew though.

And they made you earn every penny of it

My first day on the SP on May 13, 1960, at Phoenix as a brakeman paid $21.52 for 8 hours on the road switcher rate.  Then I got furloughed and found a job as a vacation relief brakeman on the Magma Arizona Railroad at Superior, Arizona.  They paid the princely sum of $19.96 per day, or $2.49 1/2 per hour.  I thought I was rich on my first payday!

Norm

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/24 11:57 by aronco.

aronco Wrote:
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> I thought I was rich on my first payday!

So did I on my first payday after hiring out on the SP&S Ry on 09/01/66 (the first day of the last third of the 20th century).  I began as the day shift laborer at the Portland Hoyt Street Roundhouse and worked every day in September due to a manpower shortage.  Even at only $1.93 per hour both of September's pay periods were pretty impressive to a new hire.  It got even better on the 3rd of October when I entered engine service as a hostler helper at Hoyt Street (on the 30th anniversary of my father's SP&S fireman's seniority date) at $2.89 per hour.  That was a whole lot more than what I was earning previously in the electric shop at Todd Shipyard in Seattle.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/24 02:22 by Jim700.

aronco Wrote:
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>  I thought I was rich on my first
> payday!
>

. . . which is how I felt on receipt of my first paycheck at $3.035 per hour in 1967.

TAW

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> aronco Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >  I thought I was rich on my first
> > payday!
> >
>
> . . . which is how I felt on receipt of my first
> paycheck at $3.035 per hour in 1967.
>
> TAW

And me getting my first paycheck at $4.33 per hour as a section laborer in 1973. That increased to $4.50 in 1974. One day in August, 1974 we were fighting fires along the right-of-way set by a train. I worked 8 hours regular time, 8 hours overtime (time and a half) and 2 hours double time. I made over $100 that day, thought I had died and gone to heaven!

Posted from iPhone

I had a similar non-railroad job that I started in 1982 working nights, every other week-end and holidays at $8.43/hour. As prevoiusly stated, I thought I had dies and gone to Heaven. I bought a house: $68,500 for 1500 sq. ft. Again, Thiought I was living good. Still at the same job 46 years later making over $55.00/hour but no longer nights, weekend or holidays. I'd take 1982 all over again. 

Consider the pay of an Army E-4 when I got discharged  in 1976 to my first trip Braking on the L&N in July 1976. What a difference! 

Steve
 

For some perspective, I was a student working part-time at a minimum wage job in a warehouse in 1967, and that paid $1.25/hour.  That was in California, and that was the national minimum wage.  So a railroad job that paid over $3.00/hour looked pretty good!  I never worked a railroad job, but I thought I was gatting rich when my first offer out of college  with a B.A. in 1968 was for $600/month ≠ $3.40/hour.

D F W