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Key statistics

The identity block — every fact is canon, none is generated.

4 of 8

Track

Management

Family rungs priced

M1 · M2 · M3 · M4 · M5 · M6

53-0000

industrial_energy_operations

Coordinates

3 / 4 spaces

pay@2 · 2026-07

What this role is

Leads multiple rail operations managers and their teams to ensure safe, efficient, and reliable train service across a major route or regional network. At the Director (M4) level, the role owns a function or department, strategic priorities and cross-functional alignment, and drives function-level results. Leads managers; sets direction for the function.

What this level does

Assume management responsibility for assigned rail operations services, developing operational strategies for coordinating construction, maintenance, and safe/efficient revenue operations across multiple sections
Manage multiple operating departments or sections through managers, resolving conflicts between yard operations, revenue service, and maintenance-of-way demands
Set functional operating policies and align shift and yard practices with broader business objectives, where failures could jeopardize revenue service
Engage senior leaders on operational strategy, presenting complex reports on service reliability, safety performance, and capacity
Monitor legislative and regulatory developments, assess their impact on assigned operations, and recommend and implement compliance changes

Knowledge applied: Applies strategic operating knowledge across multiple sections, setting functional policy that aligns construction, maintenance, and revenue operations with business objectives.
Complexity & problem solving: Solves cross-section problems where failures could jeopardize revenue service; balances competing operational and maintenance demands.
Collaboration & interaction: Engages senior leaders on functional operating strategy; oversees multiple operating departments through managers.
Typical experience: 8–10+ years with complex multi-team or multi-section rail operations leadership.

Skills at this level

Rail Operations Management: — Assumes management responsibility for the services and activities of rail operations, developing operational strategies that coordinate safe and efficient revenue movements with construction and maintenance activities across yards and shifts.
Signal and Rule Interpretation: — Interprets train orders, electronic and manual signals, and the railroad rules and regulations governing locomotive operation, and enforces consistent application of them across operating crews.
Rail Safety and Regulatory Compliance: — Oversees compliance with federal, state, city, and regulatory agency rules covering train operation, cargo documentation, emergency handling, and equipment use; monitors legislative developments and evaluates their impact on operations.
Certification and Competency Validation: — Verifies that operating crews hold current, regulator-mandated certifications — including hazardous materials transport and locomotive operation — and validates their understanding of operating rules and safety standards before duty assignment.
Multi-Shift Operations Supervision: — Manages, through subordinate supervisory staff, the multi-shift operations and staffing of yard and revenue service, sequencing crews and movements to sustain schedule and safety.
Instrument and Movement Monitoring: — Monitors gauges and meters measuring speed, amperage, battery charge, and air-brake pressure, and supervises crews to keep consists within safe operating parameters.
Radio Communication and Railroad Terminology: — Applies railroad radio-communication protocols and terminology to coordinate train movements and passenger handling, modeling clear, confident communication for operating teams.
Cross-Functional Operational Coordination: — Collaborates with engineering, logistics, station services, and external regulatory bodies to align maintenance windows, clear congestion, and ensure seamless, safe rail operations.
Operational Reporting: — Directs the preparation and submission of technical and complex reports on service delivery, incidents, safety performance, and regulatory compliance for rail operations.
Operations Budget and Resource Planning: — Owns operating budgets and staffing plans for a rail unit or division, allocating crews, equipment, and shifts to meet service reliability and cost targets.
Working Under Pressure and Prioritization: — Manages multiple competing priorities and directs teams calmly through the challenging, time-critical conditions of live rail operations and service disruptions.

Model-authored from 15 retrieved sources, then adversarially reviewed by an independent judge panel and held to a minimum-evidence floor before publication. Distinct from corpus-extracted content, which is labelled as such.

Pay across the ladder

Rail Transport — median with , by . Real canon data.

National-base pricing — this family's function differential is pending review, so dollar levels are not function-adjusted (level-over-level % is unaffected).

Pay figures are modeled estimates from our market equation — level-differentiated, with honest-wide bands. They refresh as new leveling evidence lands; treat per-role dollars as directional.

Demand — is the field growing, or just turning over?

SOC 53-0000 · national

Employment growth 2019–2024, BLS OEWSobserved

-9.9%Locomotive Engineers · United States

35,520 → 31,990 jobs

2,200 openings / year, split into:

replacement / exits 2,181

Growth — new jobs (1%)Exits — backfill (99%)

1% of hiring here is genuine expansion; the rest backfills people who move on.

Projected growth 2024–34 expanding: +0.7%
Growth share of hiring: 1%
Exit / retention pressure high: 99%
Openings / year: 2,200

Two quantities, kept apart: observed = employment growth differenced from two BLS OEWS vintages (what already happened); projected = BLS Employment Projections 2024–34, openings decomposed into growth + exits (growth derived from projected employment change). Neither is a pay figure.

Where this role sits — growth vs. pay

level M4 held

Demand axis is projected growth (not raw openings — that just measures churn). A curated, de-duplicated set of recognizable occupations held at this level; this role is highlighted.

Where it pays — by metro

OEWS metro median

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA$288k

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA$259k

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV$239k

Boulder, CO$236k

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA$236k

Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH$226k

Lexington Park, MD$220k

Trenton-Princeton, NJ$219k

Pay only — metro-level demand isn't in public data (it needs job postings). National median $173k; the demand-cube initiative will add growth-by-metro.

What changes across the ladder

Level-distinction canon isn't available for the adjacent levels of this profile yet.

Level differentiators

What separates M4 (M4 — Director) from the levels around it — this level only. Every word is real canon for this profile.

Scope: A function or department
Autonomy: Owns area strategy and budget
Complexity: Strategic priorities and cross-functional alignment
Impact: Function-level results
Decision rights: Owns strategy, budget, and org design for the area
Leadership: Leads managers; sets direction for the function

Full level-by-level matrix (side by side across the ladder) lives on the Ladder drill-down — not here.

Promotion

The next rung from M4 is M5.

Performance criteria for this profile render in the assessment kit →

People also watch

Nearest coordinate neighbors — same , same level. Each row's (confident / review / no match) comes from its — computed, not curated.

Profile	Key	Median	Δ structural
Chief Executive Officer, Rail Transport	jf_rail_transport::E4	$389,207†	confident0.06
Senior Train Driver	jf_rail_transport::P4	$109,466†	confident0.06
Railway Systems Technician	jf_rail_transport::S4	$56,408†	confident0.06
Rail Operations Manager	jf_rail_transport::M3	$120,351†	confident0.06

†National-base pricing — this family's function differential is pending review, so the dollar level is not function-adjusted.

Capability cluster

O*NET 53-4011

Core to this role. Click any element with an ⓘ for its O*NET definition. A job-specific capability model (SkillFrame) will sharpen this and add worked examples.

The Job Swatch

M4

jf_rail_transport::M4

Senior Manager, Rail Operations

Rail Transport

The swatch is JobFrame's core primitive: a hueset deterministically by the role's superfunction, the profileKey as its color code, the level ladder, and a content fingerprint. Two swatches that look alike are alike.

Because every role carries computable coordinates, similarity, leveling, and pricing become measurable instead of arguable— the whole point of "Pantone for jobs."

Structural

structural@1

Where it sits— position in the work taxonomy + level (weighted Gower, level > function > focus).

Track: M
Superfunction: industrial_energy_operations
Function: transport_operations
Family: rail_transport
Universal level: 4 / 8

Content

content@2

What it's about— a fingerprint over the role's tasks & capabilities.

Two roles can sit far apart structurally yet be close in content — that gap is itself a signal.

3-state matching

How any two swatches compare — a real distance in coordinate space, resolved to a calibrated verdict (never a fake "94% match").

Maritime Transport · M4review0.17

Transportation & Storage · M4review0.17

Editions — frozen & versioned

structural@1live

Released 2026-06-17

content@2live

Released 2026-07-28

pay@2live

Released 2026-07-02

semantic@1live

Released 2026-07-02

Coordinates belong to a frozen, versioned edition — a coordinate computed today still means the same thing next quarter. Re-fitting issues a new edition, so comparisons are never silently redefined.

How to read this profile

Every number here is traceable — to a named source, a stated method, and an as-of date — and each value is labeled by how we know it: observed from data, computed by a model, projected forward, or governed canon. Nothing is a black box, and nothing is invented to fill a gap.

Where every number comes from

What	Source & method	Edition	State
Median pay + range	JobFrame pay equation (function base × family multiplier × level × focus differential)	pay@2	computed
Pay across the ladder	Same equation applied at each universal level	pay@2	computed
Demand — growth & openings	BLS Employment Projections; openings decomposed into growth + exits	EP 2024–34	projected
Pay by metro	BLS OEWS metropolitan medians	OEWS 2024	observed
Level distinctions	JobFrame universal-level canon (scope · autonomy · complexity · impact · decision rights · leadership)	canon	canon
Capability cluster	O*NET Knowledge / Skills / Abilities	O*NET 53-4011	computed
Coordinates	JobFrame coordinate system — structural (weighted Gower) + content fingerprint	structural@1 · content@2 · pay@2 · semantic@1	computed
Related roles	Nearest neighbors in the structural coordinate space	structural@1	computed

The principles behind the numbers

Ranges, not false precision

Pay is P10 · median · P90, never a single misleading number.

Three honest states, never a fake %

Role matches resolve to confident / review / no-match — a calibrated verdict, not a made-up percentage.

Provenance on every value

Each number carries whether it's observed, computed, projected, or canon — so you always know how much to lean on it.

Gaps shown as gaps

When a figure isn't available at the grain you need, we say so — we don't fabricate a number to fill the cell.

Frozen, versioned editions

Pay and coordinate editions are pinned, so a comparison you make today still means the same thing next quarter.

Privacy by min-N

Any aggregate over people is suppressed below a minimum count, so no individual is identifiable.

Freshness

As of2026-07-30Editioncanon-v2@2.1.0-completeSourcecanon-v2 cell + salary-benchmark (model)