Brakey's worked under the supervision of conductors...

The firemen worked under the hoghead....

Switchmen worked under the "foreman".....

And, that system of "rank" included the rewards, higher pay for a higher skill set, since you were tested and "promoted" in "rank" to engineer and conductor.... Switching foreman, just had more seniority......everybody on the switching crew was, in theory, supposed to be able to read the damn switchlist...

This had variations on theme in other crafts among the "enlisted personnel and NCO's", and among the roundhouse crafts and car-knockers, those with "rank" wore white safety hats, and those without wore orange.

This "rank" scheme was in some ways even more true of railroad "officers". Assistant road foremen usually reported to the Road Foreman of Engines, Yardmasters (sort of warrant officers) reported to Assistant Terminal Supes on Duty, who reported to Terminal Supes (like George Delellis), who then reported to the "divison" Superintendent, and on ad infinitum all the way up to VP's, and finally to "bag o' weenies" himself, as the "Commander and Chief" of the mighty SP at "Headquarters" at Number 1 Market Street.

It was common to see a list of the "chain of command" with the "Divisions" pantheon of notables and local potentates among the "officer corps" on the front of the employee timetable, and on the inside page.....

RR's were not very organized and poorly managed in the period before the Civil War. No one had really ever organized a great industrial enterprises on so vast a scale over such "vast" distances. But, low and behold, after the Civil War, RR's were reorganized between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century along the model many of these folks had seen used in the war. Which, in its own way, was a similar vast complex enterprise, with a focus on "mission", requiring an organized and disciplined "chain of command" to carry out that "mission". When you go look at who later built and managed the RR's during this period of the great RR boom, it is filled with Civil War veterans.

RHIP (Rank Has Its Privileges..), and "perks" included private cars that went to truly important and high "ranking" "officers"...a true sign of RR "rank", just like the Admiral's cabin on a Carrier...