Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters

High Risk
64%

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Vote Comments (5)
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
67%
(High Risk)
POLLING
60%
(Moderate Risk, Based on 100 votes)
Average: 64%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
1.9%
by year 2033
WAGES
$71,130
or $34.19 per hour
Volume
46,490
as of 2023
SUMMARY
What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
4.0/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

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Calculated automation risk

67% (High Risk)

High Risk (61-80%): Jobs in this category face a significant threat from automation, as many of their tasks can be easily automated using current or near-future technologies.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Persuasion

User poll

60% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. However, the automation risk level we have generated suggests a much higher chance of automation: 67% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

The following graph is shown where there are enough votes to produce meaningful data. It displays user poll results over time, providing a clear indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters' job openings is expected to rise 1.9% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters' was $71,130, or $34 per hour

'Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters' were paid 48.0% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 46,490 people employed as 'Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 3 thousand people are employed as 'Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters'.

Job description

Coordinate activities of switch-engine crew within railroad yard, industrial plant, or similar location. Conductors coordinate activities of train crew on passenger or freight trains. Yardmasters review train schedules and switching orders and coordinate activities of workers engaged in railroad traffic operations, such as the makeup or breakup of trains and yard switching.

SOC Code: 53-4031.00

Comments (5)

Leave a comment
Xeis (Uncertain)
13 Jul 2025 03:39
The actual job of conductor could be easy to automate, but you can’t leave a train doing hundred of miles with thousand people inside without a human in case of any problem, so yes the train will be mostly auto drived but there will still be a « human conductor »
Delelibird (No chance)
21 Jun 2025 17:18
If railways barely get extensions and upgrades on time then it’ll be 1000s of years until ai equipment is cost effective for them
chase (Low)
07 Oct 2024 13:14
its mostly labor intense and i do not see the risks at all.
EFS (Highly likely)
23 Nov 2022 17:13
Trains can be entirely operated with a database system if all rail is connected by internet or other computing systems.

Far easier than self-driving cars as railway lines are already pretty connected in terms of IT.

The challenge isn't much, all things considered.

The first step will be remote-control management of trains, with one person operating 10 or so trains. Eventually, they will be fully replaced with perhaps one person overseeing an entire company's trains.
Fred (Highly likely)
14 Apr 2021 04:58
I work for a class I railroad and positive train control has been in use on our engines for about 3 years. It stops the train if the engineer doesn't. A large part of an over the road freight conductor duties are to be a second set of eyes and to stop the train if something happens to the engineer. We do have other duties that are important and won't be replaced by robots anytime soon. Will we be replaced by robots soon? Probably not but partially yes.
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