Employment of most railroad transportation occupations is expected to decline through the year 2012. The need to replace workers who transfer to other occupations or retire will be the main source of job openings. Employment in most rail occupations will continue to decline as both railroads and job duties are consolidated. Locomotive engineers and conductors will increasingly take on the job duties of other workers as railroads control labor costs to remain competitive with other modes of transportation. However, employment of subway and streetcar operators will grow about as fast as the average for all occupations, due to increased demand for light-rail transportation systems around the Nation.

Demand for railroad freight service will grow as the economy and the intermodal transportation of goods expand. Intermodal systems use trucks to pick up and deliver the shippers' sealed trailers or containers and employ trains to transport them long distance. This practice saves customers time and money because it carries goods across the country efficiently. For railroads, the benefit has been an increase in the efficiency of equipment use, allowing each train to make more runs each year. In order to compete with other modes of transportation, such as trucks, ships, and aircraft, railroads are improving delivery times and ontime service while reducing shipping rates.

However, growth in the number of railroad transportation workers will be adversely affected by innovations such as larger, faster, more fuel-efficient trains and computerized classification yards that make it possible to move freight more economically. Computers help to keep track of freight cars, match empty cars with the closest loads, and dispatch trains. Computer-assisted devices alert engineers to malfunctions, and work rules now allow trains to operate with two-person crews instead of the traditional three- to five-person crews.