Metro Trains Melbourne Pay Rates 2026: EA Pay Grades & Award Floor

Metro Trains Melbourne operates the suburban train network under franchise to the Victorian Government, employing train drivers, station staff, authorised officers, signallers, rolling stock maintainers and infrastructure crews. It is one of Victoria's biggest private employers and heavily unionised.

Metro's pay is set by its enterprise agreements — separate deals for operations, infrastructure and rolling stock (below) — sitting above the Rail Industry Award 2020. The award operations ladder is tabled below as the floor; Metro's agreement rates are substantially higher, so the award is the benchmark rather than the payslip.

The federal awards relevant to Metro Trains Melbourne roles:

• Rail Industry Award 2020 (MA000015)

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Metro Trains Melbourne Pty. Ltd. declared 6,857 employees — 0.2% casual and 32.6% women, with 916 in management roles. Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

The Rail Industry Award 2020 (MA000015) is the federal safety net under every rail operator's agreement. Its operations-stream base rates (weekly ÷ 38) are:

Rail agreements pay well above this ladder, so the award matters as the floor when an agreement expires and as the benchmark in bargaining, not as your payslip. The award also publishes shift, weekend and annualised variants of each level that are not shown here.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Enterprise agreements set rates above the award, with their own classification structures and allowances. Current Metro Trains Melbourne agreements in our corpus (6 in total):

• Metro Trains Sydney Automated Passenger Services Agreement 2025 — approved January 2026, nominal expiry 22 January 2029.
• Metro Trains Melbourne Infrastructure Enterprise Agreement 2023 — approved April 2024, nominal expiry 30 June 2027.
• Metro Trains Melbourne Rolling Stock Enterprise Agreement 2023 — approved May 2024, nominal expiry 30 June 2027.
• Metro Trains Melbourne Pty Ltd Rail Operations Enterprise Agreement 2023 — approved February 2024, nominal expiry 30 June 2027.
• Metro Trains Sydney Maintenance Enterprise Agreement 2023 — approved August 2023, nominal expiry 30 March 2026.
• Metro Trains Sydney Automated Passenger Services Agreement 2023 — approved October 2023, nominal expiry 22 August 2025.

We don't reproduce agreement dollar figures here — the agreement covering your site, state and stream is the document to read. Find your agreement, then your classification, then your pay point, and compare it with your payslip. The award tables on this page are the floor every one of these agreements must beat.

The patterns worth checking on a Metro Trains Melbourne payslip:

• Agreement pay grades not applied after a transfer of business or franchise change.
• Rostering and shift-change penalties under the agreement missed on short-notice changes.
• Unpaid sign-on, handover and travel at the start and end of shifts.
• Allowances (meal, travel, relieving) dropped when payroll systems change.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.