Salary
Average Salary: $70,820
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $2,956,593
Two words: government salary. Two more words: government benefits. Another two words: ohmygosh somuchcash.
Government employees are paid on a merit- and experience-based pay scale known as the General Schedule, or GS. According to the Federal Railroad Association, the starting level for your career is GS-12 (source). That's great information to have, if you had any frame of reference for it.
Well, here's your frame of reference: GS-12 means a starting salary of around $60,000 a year. As you step- and grade-up, your take-home pay will grow with you, like some incredibly awesome real-world RPG (or, you know, the real world).
Where you live will also play into it: if your home depot (not the store) is in a large and expensive population center, you're automatically getting a bigger payday simply for living there―that's called locality pay. It's Uncle Sam's way of saying "we know life's expensive; here's a down payment on your house."
With all of that bound together in one sweet incentive package, this career could be shipping in $150,000 a year by the time your kids are naming kids. And that doesn't even begin to consider the career-long benefits like governmental health care, pension plans, retiree assistance, and Smithsonian day-passes (source). Those will be good for the dozen or so days you actually get to spend with your family (that's what we call a trade-off).
The reason for this incredible incentive is you're getting paid in relation to the amount of hours you work, miles you travel, number of people actually qualified to do it, and responsibility you have to the citizens of the United States.
After all, train accidents aren't just tragic losses of life and environmental disasters―they also cost the government (not to mention railroad owners and insurance companies) a couple trainloads of cash in relief, clean-up, and lawsuits.
You aren't just expected to inspect; you'll also investigate, report, and recommend for the future. If time, money, energy, and lives can all be saved just by having you and that incredible brain of yours around, believe us, they're going to make the pot as sweet as they can.