Can anybody tell me how much Amtrack Train Drivers earn a year?

Question

Can anybody tell me how much Amtrack Train Drivers earn a year?

Answer 1

I would agree with tincan's answer except that I dont think any full time amtrak engineer would earn less than $50,000 a year and upwards of $80,000.

Another consideration is railroad retirement, which takes out a lot more than social security but more than makes up for it in retirement benefits.

Answer 2

Depending on all sorts of things, I have heard that an Amtrak engineer can earn from $35,000 to $70,000 depending on years of service, hours worked etc. This is what I have been told by a so called reliable source.

Amtrak engineers are not salaried employees; they are hourly wage earners. There are so many different jobs that an "average" annual pay would be descriptive of nothing. There are some jobs locally (PDX-KFS) that, if the trains are running on time, pay less than 40 hours straight time equivalent per week. There are some jobs at other locations that will work 70 or more hours per week and be paid overtime rate after eight hours on each of the six days. Then there's always the extra board engineer that may work seven days per week in the crew bases that are perennially short of employees. Sure, the contract says the extra board engineer has a day off each week but the "day off" is actually "24 hours off" which means, for instance, that the engineer could arrive in his home terminal at 2 PM on the return trip of his "sixth day" call and go right back out at 3 PM the next afternoon. The "day off" is a joke in many cases.