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[quote user="CP_RAILFAN"] Does anyone know how many women currently work for Class I railroads as locomotive engineers, conductors, and trainmen? Does anyone know where I can find that information? [/quote] According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Household Data, Employed Persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, or Latino ethnicity, which is drawn in part from the U.S. Census Bureau 2010 data, in 2011 the U.S. had 45,000 locomotive engineers and operators, 5,000 railroad brake, signal and switch operators, and 52,000 railroad conductors and yard masters. These numbers, which are derived from statistical samplings, have been rounded when projected to the population as a whole. Nothing is simple when it comes to wading through government reports. Another BLS table for May 2010 shows 39,300 locomotive engineers. I suspect the difference is a function of timing, as well as classification parameters.  It appears that the 39,300 figure consists of engineers who are driving trains, although not necessarily for Class I railroads, whereas the 45,000 figure includes those who may have been working engineers, i.e. they have a license, but have moved on to supervision, management, or have left railroad employment.    The job classification system used by the BLS is probably somewhat different than what you have in mind. Because the BLS classifies a broad spectrum of jobs, it may included in locomotive engineers people that you would not classify as such. Nevertheless, the BLS numbers provide a reasonable picture. The BLS numbers do not show the percentage of locomotive engineers and operators or railroad brake, signal and switch operators who are women.  This probably means that less than one per cent of the sample was women.  As a rule the BLS does not show percentages of less than one per cent.  However, 6.6% of the railroad conductors and yard masters were women. In January I rode a San Joaquin train from Emeryville to Bakersfield enroute to Santa Barbara.  Southbound the locomotive is pushing the train, which means if one gets a front seat in the first car and the engineers leaves the door open, which was the case on my train, he has an "engineers" view of the ride.  As it turned out, on the leg from Fresno to Bakersfield the train was operated by the Road Foreman of Engines.  I had a chance to talk with him.  Amongst other things I asked him why he was running the train.  He told me that he was short six engineers, i.e. Amtrak was looking for six engineers in that area. He also told me that approximately 30 per cent of his engineers are females.  In fact, from Emeryville to Fresno, I believe that is where they change crews, a rookie engineer was being supervised by a woman, who I later found out has been with Amtrak for more than 20 years.    Here is a little bonus that you did not ask for.  The mean wage for locomotive engineers in 2010 was $50,870 per year, whilst the median wage was $46,630.  To determine the total compensation package, HR people normally add another 25 to 35% for overheads, i.e. pension, healthcare, payroll taxes, etc.  Using 30% as a rough estimate, the mean compensation package for a locomotive engineer would have been $66,131 and the median would have been $60,619.  The top ten percentile had average annual wages of $74,600 plus overheads whilst the first or bottom 10 percentile had average annual wages of $33,550 plus overheads.  I suspect many of those in the bottom 10 percentile were rookies or working for small regionals.
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