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Key statistics

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

5 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

Senior executive who directs train operations, crew scheduling, track maintenance, and rolling stock programs across a rail network or division. At the Senior Director (M5) level, the role owns multiple functions or a large department, org-level trade-offs and investment, and drives multi-function results. Leads directors and managers.

What this level does

Direct rail operations across a division or region through department managers, impacting overall division operations for both yard and revenue service
Define operating methods and standards to resolve complex, division-wide problems such as capacity constraints, systemic delay, and safety exposure
Own the division operating budget and set the strategic direction for construction, maintenance coordination, and revenue operations
Influence executives and major stakeholders (regulators, municipal partners) on key operational and safety issues with business-wide implications
Direct compliance with all federal, state, city, and regulatory agency rules, and lead the district's response to legislative change affecting operations

Knowledge applied: Defines division- or region-wide operating methods and standards, impacting overall division operations for yard and revenue service.
Complexity & problem solving: Resolves complex, division-wide problems — capacity, systemic delay, safety exposure — and defines the methods used to address them.
Collaboration & interaction: Influences executives, regulators, and major partners on key operational and safety issues; leads through department managers.
Typical experience: 10–12+ years including second-level management and operational strategy work.

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 M5 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$324k

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA$290k

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV$269k

Boulder, CO$265k

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA$265k

Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH$254k

Lexington Park, MD$247k

Trenton-Princeton, NJ$246k

Pay only — metro-level demand isn't in public data (it needs job postings). National median $194k; 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 M5 (M5 — Senior Director) from the levels around it — this level only. Every word is real canon for this profile.

Scope: Multiple functions or a large department
Autonomy: Owns multi-year strategy for the area
Complexity: Org-level trade-offs and investment
Impact: Multi-function results
Decision rights: Owns investment and org design across functions
Leadership: Leads directors and managers

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

Promotion

The next rung from M5 is M6.

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
Staff Rail Operations Engineer	jf_rail_transport::P5	$138,423†	confident0.06
Lead Rail Operations Specialist	jf_rail_transport::S5	$60,631†	confident0.06
Senior Manager, Rail Operations	jf_rail_transport::M4	$167,689†	confident0.06
Senior Director of Rail Operations	jf_rail_transport::M6	$241,631†	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

M5

jf_rail_transport::M5

Director of 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: 5 / 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 · M5review0.17

Transportation & Storage · M5review0.17

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)