Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers
Operate or monitor railroad track switches or locomotive instruments. May couple or uncouple rolling stock to make up or break up trains. Watch for and relay traffic signals. May inspect couplings, air hoses, journal boxes, and hand brakes. May watch for dragging equipment or obstacles on rights-of-way.
Also known as: Brakeman · Car Rider · Car Hopper · Car Runner · Brake Rider · Car Coupler
This score estimates how exposed the tasks in a role are to current and near-term AI capabilities. It does not predict whether a specific person will lose a job.
Your free role snapshot
Start with the work, not the headline
This occupation baseline already contains different kinds of work. These are the two ends of its current task range and one useful action you can take now.
Most exposed task
Receive oral or written instructions from yardmasters or yard conductors indicating track assignments and cars to be switched.
Durable 30/100 exposure
Most durable task
Climb ladders to tops of cars to set brakes.
Durable 8/100 exposure
Useful next step
Make one change to the task mix
Protect the durable core of the role, then use AI to compress the routine work around it before that becomes a mandate.
Want this mapped to your actual week? Know what to strengthen, what to delegate to AI with review, and what to do over the next 7, 30, and 90 days.
Build my 7/30/90-day action plan — $9Most exposed tasks
No task is classified fully automatable in this release. The highest-exposure task relative to this role is shown in the free snapshot above; the assistive work is detailed next.
Most durable tasks
Lowest exposure — typically judgment, relationships, physical presence, or accountability. This is the human moat.
-
Operate locomotives in emergency situations.8
-
Climb ladders to tops of cars to set brakes.8
-
Signal locomotive engineers to start or stop trains when coupling or uncoupling cars, using hand signals, lanterns, or radio communication.10
Task exposure values and classifications are published, versioned estimates audited against the anchored rubric. This page reads them from the data release rather than generating them at request time. Bars show exposure contribution relative to this role’s task mix.
What this means
A score of 14 puts Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers in the least-exposed quarter of analyzed occupations. In practice, exposure this level is about the mix: 0 of 20 analyzed tasks lean automatable, 0 augmentable, and 20 durable. The useful question isn’t “will AI take this job” — it’s which tasks go first, which get faster, and where to reposition time. That’s what the personalized report maps against your actual week.
Lower-exposure adjacent roles
No adjacent role in the current data release is at least 10 points lower with ≥50% skill overlap — we don’t label anything “safer” unless the data supports it.
Labor-market context
- $68,840median wage
- 12,400employed
- 1,000annual openings
- +0.9%projected growth
Context only — labor statistics are not inputs to the exposure score. See methodology.
Turn your actual week into a plan
Know which work to strengthen, what to delegate to AI with review, and what to do over the next 7, 30, and 90 days. Your $9 plan includes a confidence-rated personal score, task matrix, human moat, and only genuinely lower-exposure adjacent roles.
Build my 7/30/90-day action plan — $9Related roles
Adjacent by skills or family — no exposure claim implied.
How this score was calculated
The score is the plain average of the AI-exposure values of this role’s 20 analyzed tasks (equal task weights in this release — no hidden factors):
- Durable 20 tasks, averaging 14/100 exposure
score = (20×14) ÷ 20 ≈ 14
Every task’s exposure value was scored against a published anchored rubric that scores tasks as actually performed — physical, in-person, and accountability requirements included (data release 2026.07.12-r2). The band (Low) is a corpus quartile; the percentile is tie-aware across all 968 occupations.
FAQ — Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers
- Will AI replace Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers?
- This score cannot predict whether this occupation or any individual job will be replaced. It shows which tasks current and near-term AI can perform or accelerate, which tasks remain more durable, and where a worker can adapt. Employer decisions, demand, regulation, and how the role changes are outside the score.
- What does a score of 14 mean for a Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers?
- It means that, weighted across the 20 tasks we analyzed for this role, the task mix sits at 14 on a 0–100 exposure scale — in the least-exposed quarter of analyzed occupations. It measures task exposure to current and near-term AI capabilities, not the probability of losing a job.
- Which tasks in this role are most exposed to AI?
- This role has no strongly automatable task in the current data release.
- Which parts of this job are most durable?
- The most durable responsibilities are: Operate locomotives in emergency situations; Climb ladders to tops of cars to set brakes; Signal locomotive engineers to start or stop trains when coupling or uncoupling cars, using hand signals, lanterns, or radio communication. Durable tasks typically depend on judgment, relationships, physical presence, or accountability.
- Is this score personalized to me?
- No — this page shows the occupation-level baseline. Two people with the same title often do different work. The $9 personalized report recalculates the score from the tasks you actually do and builds a concrete 7/30/90-day plan around them.
Score version jr-v1 · data release 2026.07.12-r2 · updated 2026-07-13 · baseline mapping: 20 of 20 tasks carry source-level provenance · methodology