Passenger Trains > Amtrak payscale for engineers

Are Amtrak engineers paid by the mile,day,hour?

by the hour

Are they paid actual hours worked, or a minimum 8-hour day? Thanks for the info.

There are lots of varibles but in general, an eight day every time you perform actual service, some jobs pay eight but work less. plus five dollars per day for being certified. There is overtime paid after eight hours. The extra board is guaranteed 40 hours pay if the Engineer is available for work for a period of six days.

If an engineer was available on a regular basis could/would he make 50k per year?

An engineer working a 40 hour week would make about $56K a year.

The top pay for an Amtrak engineer is $26.92 per hour, plus the $5.00 certification allowance. New engineers work at a lower payscale initially, but reach full pay after 5 years, I believe.

Just a clarification. The $5.00 certification allowance is per day, not per hour.

Ain't it inteeresting......still takes 5 yrs to get full rate of pay but ur doing the whole job. If ur not qualified to do the job & are still learning, who's teaching u when u run the trains by urself?
On the other hand if u are fully qualified & doing the whoe job, shouldn't u get the FULL rate of pay. I haven't heard about refunding 25% of the ticket price to psgrs who ride a train behind an engineer who's only getting 75% of pay. Call it what it is....chiselling.

The day I hired out in '68 I was making the same daily rate as an employee who had been on the job for thirty years. Sure didn't seem to make sense, given my level of knowledge and experience, but who was I to argue ? Besides, $29.00 a day was big bucks. The 75% entry rates went into effect some years later, negotiated during national contract talks between the unions and the carriers. At the time the carriers were looking for wage relief from the unions, and one of the arguments for it was that most other industries have similar sliding scale wage arrangements which provide for raises as the employee gains seniority, experience, and (hopefully) value to the company. There were arguments against it too. Scrantondiv's previous post very eloquently pointed out just one of them. Another argument was the certain creation of a wedge between veterans and newer employees. "If I'm only gonna get 75% of my wages, then I'm only gonna do 75% of my work" is a quote that I've heard on more than one occasion. To me the bottom line is that most new-hires actually apply for the job, and the pay scales are always made clear to them during the initial training and screening process. To ask for and accept a job with full knowledge of all the pay provisions and then proceed to bitch about the unfairness of it all after the fact is ludicrous. There's a heck of a lot more to paying your dues and earning the right to call yourself a veteran railroader than making a few qualifying trips with the Road Foreman.

CRI&P

Dear CRI&P.....I had over 20 yrs experience when hired at AMTRAK & it was made very clear to me by supervisors that it "Didn't mean a thing" as far as pay goes, but it would be my FULL responsibility when I was out there running trains by MYSELF. I think we are all familiar with apprentice programs. My dad was a machinist & used to tell me about being trained by older men when he started out. Same for me when I was a fireman. The difference is when you're doing the full job, how come you don't get the full rate of pay??????? What it amounts to, is the employees subsidizing the Company. I don't think most of them'd mind doing that.....most of the T&E folks I've worked with have no objection to going the 'extra mile', they DO get upset when they see money being squandered after all the 'givebacks' that AMTRAK is so fond of and that the petty Hitlers constantly rub our noses in.

I have very few positive thoughts about the BNSF & my 3-years of constant furloughs while "employed" by them. They did have the policy of paying at 100% when working as an conductor or engineer,regardless of when you were hired. Seems only fair to me, if one is accepting full responsibility then one should be compensated at the full rate of pay.

In this area, experienced locomotive engineers who hire out with Amtrak start at 100% pay rate. Even new-hire A.C.'s who are hired off the street start out at 90%, with the provision that they agree to stay at this crew base for a minimum of two years (I believe) before bidding out. If they DO bid out, they revert to the 75% rate at their new crew base. The "petty Hitler" thing sounds like a local management problem. I'd consider bidding out if it's that bad. Our local RFE busts his butt assisting "re-entry" engineers with payroll problems. A manager's primary purpose should be to assist employees, solve problems, help them get paid correctly, and see they are provided with the tools and training needed to do the job. If they ain't doing that, they ain't doing their job. If they ain't doing their job, they should be shown the door. I'll get off my soapbox now.

CRI&P

Sounds like heaven.......a RFE that's HELPFUL. Just kidding.....

The other side of the entry rate thing is that certain railroads have developed the "fire the experienced help" mentality. Does the word "yellow" ring a bell?