Money · 1 of 5
What engineers make
Median
$81,410
Bottom tenth
$60,680
Top tenth
$109,220
The national median is $81,410 a year, the bottom tenth earn $60,680 or less and the top tenth $109,220 or more, in the 2025 survey. Almost none of that is a salary. Railroad pay is built from trip rates, mileage and overtime, so two engineers on the same railroad can be thousands of dollars apart purely because of what their seniority lets them bid on.