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According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pay for a railroad engineer in the U.S. is $53,680.  The average wage for an over the road heavy truck driver is $42,580.  The averages for railroad conductors, customer service representatives, and others are $54,200, $40,960 and $31,780.  This data is from the 2008 database, which contains the latest national information compiled by the BLS.  The only data that I could find for Amtrak is in the current job postings, which is limited and may not be representative of Amtrak's wage scales.  Amtrak's station agents (Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso, etc.) probably fall into the customer service classification. Amtrak is looking for a police officer in Los Angeles.  The pay is $45,552 per year.  The average pay for a similar role in Los Angeles $46,230, which puts the Amtrak pay slightly below the average.  The average pay for a city police officer in the U.S. is $52,810, whilst in California it is $74,660.   It is also looking for a trainmaster and operations supervisor on the west coast.  The pay for the trainmaster is $65,000 to $90,000 per year, whilst the pay for the operations supervisor is $63,819. The average pay for similar positions (freight, passenger, major carrier, regional carrier) is $84,500.  At least for this category Amtrak does not appear to be giving the store away. Amtrak is looking for assistant conductors in numerous locations.  The training wage is $36, 920 per year.  Assuming the training wage is 75 per cent of the annual wage, the wage for an assistant conductor would be $49,226.  And if assistant conductors earn 75 per cent of the wages of a conductor, then Amtrak's conductors would earn $65,635, which would be considerably more than the national average of $54,200 for conductors.  The average for all conductors, however, includes regional freight lines, as well as commuter lines, which pay considerably less than the major carriers.     What is unknown in all this, of course, is the value of the benefit package, e.g. medical insurance, retirement benefits, savings plans, etc.  It can add easily 35 per cent to the base wage.  Frequently, unions in particular will sacrifice hourly wages for rich benefit packages.  I suspect that Amtrak's benefit package is generous.
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