Eastern Railroad Discussion > Locomotive engineer pay?

The matter of locomotive engineer and conductor pay often comes in TrainOrders discussions. It seems like there are a lot of different pieces in play, and local agreements may change actual work schedules, etc. I was particularly interested in the recent mention of anullment pay. Never heard of that before.

There are scheduled long haul road jobs that people bid for. They appear to pay by the mile, but have overtime if your job takes more time than the formula allows. Some long pools are 300 miles long. You may get paid something if you get to the end of your trip and are placed in a hotel, awaiting a call. You might get paid if you have to wait and wait for a van driver to get to your train and bring your dead on the law crew to a hotel.  Is that right?

If you work in a pool from a specific terminal, can you also sign up for other pools originating at that terminal? Can you switch which pool you're in as opportunities look better? Or is that a once a year etc opportunity?

There are extra board jobs where you wait by the phone for a call to work a job in a few hours. If you are called to a long haul job,do you make the same as a crew that is "scheduled" for that job?  I know at DeCamp bus company in NJ, extra board paid a higher hourly rate than scheduled work because it wasn't guaranteed. The most senior guys generally went on extra board for the first few slots. There were always a few sick / vacation slots to cover. Beyond that it was newbies hoping for an assignment.

On the railroad, if you're on an extra board, there's a list which determines who gets which assignments. Trains disappear and people get less attractive trains (more work enroute, low priority, etc), then the original train reappears on the list. Do you get paid for being bumped onto a less attractive job?

Yard jobs - pay an hourly salary, with some certainty of when you work, what days?  Once selected, can you also be on the extra board for additional work?  If you work a yard job that used to have a brakeman or switch man, do you get an additional  payment? Are you assigned / selected for one yard or local switching job, or can you move around from one to another?

Added to this, you can make more money with heavier locomotives / weight on driving axles.  I'm guessing this might be a steam era holdover.  Do multiple DPU on the train add to how much an engineer or conductor make?  I know pilot wages are based in part on seniority and type of aircraft to which you are assigned.

On NS weight on drivers only pays for Locals. Any road job over 130 miles pays trip rate with overtime pushed back by miles. 198 mile run OT doesnt start till 12h30m

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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>  I was particularly interested in
> the recent mention of anullment pay. Never heard
> of that before.

GENRALLY, If you're on a local or yard job that is supposed to work X (5) days a week & the RR anulls (cancels) your asignment due to holiday /manpower, whatever, you get paid a basic, 8 hour day.  You're guaranteed to make X dollars on such assignments.  Some preferred road assignments can get this too, but not as a general practice.

> There are scheduled long haul road jobs that
> people bid for. They appear to pay by the mile,
> but have overtime if your job takes more time than
> the formula allows. Some long pools are 300 miles
> long. You may get paid something if you get to the
> end of your trip and are placed in a hotel,
> awaiting a call. You might get paid if you have to
> wait and wait for a van driver to get to your
> train and bring your dead on the law crew to a
> hotel.  Is that right?

Most road crews operating to an away point & put up in a hotel get detention time; an agreed upon pently payment for being held away from home.  It incentivizes the RR to get a person home /use their crews in a timely manner.  Generally, it is paid on a per minute bases, following a period of time spent resting & waiting in the hotel without pay & can remain in effect until back on duty.  In some cases it is continuous after being held X hrs in the hotel; in some cases it pays for a period of 8hrs after waiting the prescribed amount of time in the hotel without pay.
A guy on a long pool over about 200-215 miles or more usually won't see any over time unless they are on duty more than 12hrs.  The more miles "baked in" to the run, the further out of reach overtime becomes.

> If you work in a pool from a specific terminal,
> can you also sign up for other pools originating
> at that terminal? Can you switch which pool you're
> in as opportunities look better? Or is that a once
> a year etc opportunity?

Eastern roads:  You can change assignments weekly.  What you can work depends on the seniority you have.

> There are extra board jobs where you wait by the
> phone for a call to work a job in a few hours. If
> you are called to a long haul job,do you make the
> same as a crew that is "scheduled" for that job? 

Yes.

> I know at DeCamp bus company in NJ, .......

Totally irrelevant.  You're comparing apples to bowling balls.

> On the railroad, if you're on an extra board,
> there's a list which determines who gets which
> assignments. Trains disappear and people get less
> attractive trains (more work enroute, low
> priority, etc), then the original train reappears
> on the list. Do you get paid for being bumped onto
> a less attractive job?

No, you get whatever the job makes for which you are called.  "The List" rotates first in, first out, luck of the draw, generally speaking.

> Yard jobs - pay an hourly salary, with some
> certainty of when you work, what days? 

You meat to type "hourly rate."
....huh?

>Once
> selected, can you also be on the extra board for
> additional work? 

What?  No.

> If you work a yard job that
> used to have a brakeman or switch man, do you get
> an additional  payment?

The trainmen hired pre-1985 used to; this is pretty rare these days, so no.

>Are you assigned /
> selected for one yard or local switching job, or
> can you move around from one to another?

Once called & reported for work, Not on your own accord.  The RR is the only entity that can change your assignment after a call.

> Added to this, you can make more money with
> heavier locomotives / weight on driving axles. 
> I'm guessing this might be a steam era holdover. 

This is getting in the weeds, but yard engines, locals, and some /a few road trains do get paid more for handling bigger, heavier engines, or the more engines you have, the more you get paid -generally.  Yes, it is still a pay component that goes back to the steam days.

> Do multiple DPU on the train add to how much an
> engineer or conductor make? 

DPs have no beraing on the conductor's earnings.  (Neither do the engine(s) on the front of the train.)  DPs can pay more on a road train, but generally no; seee answer to above question; it's pretty similar.

>I know pilot wages......

....are mostly irrelevant. You're comparing apples to bowling balls again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/25 12:23 by nsrlink.

Not from personal experience, but I've heard blowing balls pays pretty well.

irhoghead Wrote:
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> Not from personal experience, but I've heard
> blowing balls pays pretty well.

Really sucks, tho.

All the details of engines pay reminds me of a story about Colonel Frank Borman.  When he first came to Eastern Air Lines, he became VP Operations and got immediately involved with pilot contract negotiations.  At the conclusion of a particularly arduous day of "negotiating" Borman, who could be rather profane, remarked that the trouble with the pilot's contract was it was, "...too damned complicated!"
One of the very senior captains, who had been in the negotiating committee for years, leaned back in his chair, lit a cigar and said,
"May be, Colonel, but there's one thing for certain."
"What's that?" asked Borman.
"There aren't any airline pilots flying around the moon for fifteen hundred bucks a month!", said the captain.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/25 12:47 by a737flyer.

Wonder if he had actually learned what Borman's astronaut pay was.

timz Wrote:
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> Wonder if he had actually learned what Borman's
> astronaut pay was.

Which was how much?

We still get short crew pay, $10.75 per day.

Where still mileage based pay is in effect, 130 miles or less is a basic day. Overtime begins at 8 hours on duty. For mileage over 130 hours, overtime begins when the time on duty exceeds the miles traveled devided by 16.25. My run is 161 miles, overtime begins at 9 hours 54 minutes on duty.

Some extended runs where overtime normally won't begin until long after dead on HOS, a specific time on duty when overtime begins may have been negotiated.

My pool is trip rated. The trip rate was figured by using a specific checking period of pre1985 people who still received arbitrary payments that post 85 people didn't get. They averaged out the daily pay those people made to figure the trip rate. Trip rate pools still get overtime, short crew pay and $5 day certification pay but all other payments once figured additionally are now figured into the trip rate.

Penalty payment claims (grieivances) for contract violations are still valid. Getting them actually paid is another matter.

Posted from Android

57A26 Wrote:
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> We still get short crew pay, $10.75 per day.
>
> Where still mileage based pay is in effect, 130
> miles or less is a basic day. Overtime begins at 8
> hours on duty. For mileage over 130 hours,
> overtime begins when the time on duty exceeds the
> miles traveled devided by 16.25. My run is 161
> miles, overtime begins at 9 hours 54 minutes on
> duty.
>
> Some extended runs where overtime normally won't
> begin until long after dead on HOS, a specific
> time on duty when overtime begins may have been
> negotiated.
>
> My pool is trip rated. The trip rate was figured
> by using a specific checking period of pre1985
> people who still received arbitrary payments that
> post 85 people didn't get. They averaged out the
> daily pay those people made to figure the trip
> rate. Trip rate pools still get overtime, short
> crew pay and $5 day certification pay but all
> other payments once figured additionally are now
> figured into the trip rate.
>
> Penalty payment claims (grieivances) for contract
> violations are still valid. Getting them actually
> paid is another matter.
>
> Posted from An
where I am we only get short crew (we call it lonesome pay) on jobs that had firemen, jobs that didnt exist until after they were gone dont get it.

Thanks for all the info.  Certainly a lot of local variations

a "Western" answer, but I was recently talking to a BNSF conductor at a bar in Needles, CA -- I didn't press him much as I respect people's time away from work to not talk about work. He was proud to mention the Winslow, AZ to Needles, CA long pool pays him $762 and change each way, or around $1,550 per round trip with an overnight stay in Needles. 

I don't know if that is embellishing a little bit or if it is accurate but that seems to average at about $65 per hour. I believe it is around 270 miles and probably a full 12 hour train ride each direction.

For what it is worth....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/25 20:58 by okcrr.

okcrr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> a "Western" answer, but I was recently talking to
> a BNSF conductor at a bar in Needles, CA -- I
> didn't press him much as I respect people's time
> away from work to not talk about work. He was
> proud to mention the Winslow, AZ to Needles, CA
> long pool pays him $762 and change each way, or
> around $1,550 per round trip with an overnight
> stay in Needles. 
>
> I don't know if that is embellishing a little bit
> or if it is accurate but that seems to average at
> about $65 per hour. I believe it is around 270
> miles and probably a full 12 hour train ride each
> direction.
>
> For what it is worth....

Probably close to right....if trip rated, it would be higher than your math would indicate because a numbr of arbitraries that used to be gotten are rolled into the rate....my run is 234 miles, and it's pretty good. It's averaged with a return run of 195 miles so it's not high as it COULD be. Oh well. 

Sounds to me like you have to either be a Harvard MBA or a really-skilled certified public accountant just to keep track of your pay if you're a locomotive engineer.  

NPRocky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sounds to me like you have to either be a Harvard
> MBA or a really-skilled certified public
> accountant just to keep track of your pay if
> you're a locomotive engineer.  

Yeah, I can't speak for today, but back in the day there were guys .... actually most of them ..... that could figure their pay to the fraction of a cent. And that was at whatever rates, miles or combination thereof and arbitraries from the union contract agreement that they had down as thorough as a contract manager and MBA accountant. And woe to the payroll clerk or manager that didn't 100% agree. Many times crew members  payslips had footnotes in the claims section related to the arbitraries written in for payroll processing purposes. 

Of course sometimes they would be claimed "just to see" if they would get paid out.

Many of us, myself included, had time books for the purpose of keeping track of each run or deadhead. UTU and BLE put them out. They were set up to make it easy to figure your pay. Very useful and interesting to get a hold of them today too and look back on how things were done or for locomotive numbers and train symbols.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/25 16:04 by train1275.

"Heldaway" usually got paid, penalty claims, lotsa luck.

Out 

Don't forget, but they pay conductors, too. There pay is based quite similar to engineers. The exception is where engineer rates, outside of trip rates, is based on weight on drivers, conductors is based on number of cars handled.

Posted from Android

57A26 Wrote:
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> Don't forget, but they pay conductors, too. There
> pay is based quite similar to engineers. The
> exception is where engineer rates, outside of trip
> rates, is based on weight on drivers, conductors
> is based on number of cars handled.
>
> Posted from Android

So a conductor makes more on a 250 car monster that he or she does on a 75 car train like an intermodal?