---
title: "Rail-Track Laying and Maintenance Equipment Operator"
description: "Lay, repair, and maintain track for standard or narrow-gauge railroad equipment used in regular railroad service or in plant yards, quarries, sand and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/rail-track-laying-and-maintenance-equipment-operator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Rail-Track Laying and Maintenance Equipment Operator

**Category:** Construction and Extraction · **SOC code:** 47-4061 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 47-4061.00

Lay, repair, and maintain track for standard or narrow-gauge railroad equipment used in regular railroad service or in plant yards, quarries, sand and gravel pits, and mines. Includes ballast cleaning machine operators and railroad bed tamping machine operators.

Also advertised as: Machine Operator; Track Equipment Operator (TEO); Track Inspector; Track Laborer; Track Maintainer; Track Repair Person; Track Repairer; Track Service Person.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $70,070 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $33.69/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $45,640 to $87,420, with the middle half between $51,280 and $81,670
- **Total US employment:** 19,580
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +1.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 61/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 19,580 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $45,640 |
| 25th | $51,280 |
| 50th (median) | $70,070 |
| 75th | $81,670 |
| 90th | $87,420 |
| Mean (average) | $68,740 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MA | $94,330 | $89,195 | 570 |
| MD | $92,030 | $87,682 | 320 |
| NY | $87,150 | $80,754 | 3,590 |
| VA | $84,750 | $83,825 | 360 |
| NM | $83,370 | $90,411 | 80 |
| DE | $80,610 | $80,765 | 130 |
| MT | $79,170 | $83,649 | 200 |
| ID | $79,020 | $82,749 | 90 |
| IL | $78,910 | $78,943 | 1,190 |
| IN | $78,020 | $83,597 | 320 |
| AZ | $76,620 | $76,105 | 170 |
| MI | $75,450 | $78,416 | 290 |
| KY | $73,120 | $81,101 | 270 |
| SC | $71,770 | $76,555 | 30 |
| WY | $71,580 | $77,224 | 220 |

24 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 39 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/rail-track-laying-and-maintenance-equipment-operator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/rail-track-laying-and-maintenance-equipment-operator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 17,400 in the 2025–2035 base year to 17,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 300 jobs, or +1.5%. Slower than average: 1.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,200 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Repair or adjust track switches, using wrenches and replacement parts.
- Operate track wrenches to tighten or loosen bolts at joints that hold ends of rails together.
- Cut rails to specified lengths, using rail saws.
- Patrol assigned track sections so that damaged or broken track can be located and reported.
- Engage mechanisms that lay tracks or rails to specified gauges.
- Lubricate machines, change oil, or fill hydraulic reservoirs to specified levels.
- Drill holes through rails, tie plates, or fishplates for insertion of bolts or spikes, using power drills.
- Clean tracks or clear ice or snow from tracks or switch boxes.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Maintenance — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Repairing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Multilimb Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reaction Time — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Far Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 4.11 |
| I — Investigative | 1.70 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |
| S — Social | 1.00 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 88.0 |
| ISTP | 75.6 |
| ISFJ | 74.6 |
| ESTJ | 72.6 |
| INTJ | 64.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paving-surfacing-and-tamping-equipment-operator) — median $53,340
- [Operating Engineer and Other Construction Equipment Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/operating-engineer-and-other-construction-equipment-operator) — median $59,850
- [Millwright](https://nuecareer.com/careers/millwright) — median $65,700
- [Pile Driver Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pile-driver-operator) — median $73,300
- [Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operator, Surface Mining](https://nuecareer.com/careers/excavating-and-loading-machine-and-dragline-operator-surface-mining) — median $57,430
- [Rail Car Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rail-car-repairer) — median $67,530
- [Mobile Heavy Equipment Mechanic, Except Engines](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mobile-heavy-equipment-mechanic) — median $65,510
- [Construction Laborer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-laborer) — median $47,120
- [Hoist and Winch Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/hoist-and-winch-operator) — median $56,450
- [Earth Driller, Except Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/earth-driller) — median $60,190

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/rail-track-laying-and-maintenance-equipment-operator