Crossword Genius

Pay, unfortunately, has to be raised on railway (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

salary

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'pay unfortunately' is the definition.
'salary' can be an answer for 'pay' (thesaurus). I am not sure about the 'unfortunately' bit.

'has to be raised on railway' is the wordplay.
'has to' becomes 'alas' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'be raised' is a reversal indicator.
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'railway' becomes 'ry' (abbreviation for railway).
'alas' backwards is 'sala'.
'sala'+'ry'='SALARY'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for salary that I've seen before include "Worker's pay" , "payment only for non-manual workers" , "(Employee's) pay" , "Remuneration for Ray and Sal" , "Annual pay" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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