Were you or a relative employed by the Railroad? If so, you may be entitled to a fortune in retirement benefits. The Railroad Retirement Board was established in 1935 as an independent agency in the executive branch of the Federal Government. The RRB is the administers the comprehensive retirement and survivor benefits for railroad employees and their families under the Railroad Retirement Acts and the unemployment & sickness benefits under the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act. Both of these programs provide income protection for disability, old age, death, sickness or  temporary unemployment. 

The Railroad Retirement Trust Fund is valued at over $16 billion . In 2004 alone, benefits of nearly $9 billion dollars were paid to approximately 649,000 beneficiaries. Even though RRB's records date back to 1935, it is estimated that seven percent of railroad employee addresses on file are not current because many workers or family members have not made the proper change of address notification.

These lost benefits can be recovered only after an application has been filed. Like other unclaimed assets being held by a Federal agency, they are not available in state database searches. Fortune Finders does have access to the databases tracking the billions of dollars in unclaimed RRTF benefits.