Also called: Track Supervisor, Hi-Rail Inspector
Rides the rails in a special truck with train wheels, looking for cracked rails, loose spikes, and track defects.
You drive a pickup that can drop steel wheels onto the track, then slowly inspect miles of rail looking for anything wrong. When you find a problem, you can slow trains down or take the track out of service until it's fixed.
Estimated.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
High school diploma, about 3 years after high school. High school diploma plus years of track work and federal track safety rule training.
Ways in: On-the-job training, Certification. Training cost: Get paid while you train.
Majors to look at: Civil Engineering Technology.
Growing slowly. Steady.
Medium risk for 10 years. Automated track-geometry cars and AI cameras find defects; inspectors still walk and confirm, but fewer are needed.
Classes: Algebra I, Physics.
Official data: O*NET occupation 53-6051.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.