if you work for a railroad as an engineer you get paid 42 bucks an hour
it's really easy to get fired since there's so many regulations
Its actually not that hard to get certified, and its not easy to get fired.
Its mostly just common sense and the ability to read signs and knowing what to do in specific cases, aswell what a set of symbols represent.
I worked as a volunteer on a class 3 railroad for 4 years or so, from working alongside conductors during events to using a pneumatic hammer to force rivets into a steam engine on a steam locomotive, and ive ridden maybe a total of 60 or so hours in the cab with an engineer and a brakeman. Point is I know what im talking about, the hours suck though, but its like driving a car if your comparing it to the ammount and difficulty of regulations and such.