Glorified ticket collectors

[Coffee Break]

I read this expression, "Glorified ticket collectors", but am finding it difficult to understand it. Could you please let me know what it means? Here is the excerpt:

The train, half a mile distant, seemed to emerge silently from between two houses. Then it turned and faced them squarely, and appeared to stand quite still, except that sparks spluttered from its wheels and that it swelled a little in size. But very soon came the rattle of it, and directly afterwards they could make out the driver at his window.

Ernie held in contempt the drivers of electric trains. Glorified ticket collectors—that’s all they looked like: smug, complacent men, just holding down a handle. Give him the blackened, overalled, sweating men who rocked to and fro on the footboard of the proper, full-blooded engine!

R. C. Sherriff, The Fortnight in September, Chapter 6

This is a novel published in 1931, which describes a fortnight in September in which an English family consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, Mary, Dick, and Ernie go on a holiday. During the train journey to the holiday destination, Ernie thinks about drivers of electric trains.

In this part, I wonder what this underlined expression means, especially what "glorified" means here.
My vague guess is that it might roughly mean "ticket collectors, only a little bit better", but I am not sure.

 

[Barque]

My vague guess is that it might roughly mean "ticket collectors, only a little bit better",

Yes. Or to put it another way, he considered them not much better than ticket collectors. He believed driving an electric train was a simple job compared to driving a steam locomotive.

 

[Barque]

Give him the blackened, overalled, sweating men who rocked to and fro on the footboard of the proper, full-blooded engine!

This was of course written in the 1930s when steam engines were the most common ones. They required a lot of effort to manage. He calls them the "proper" version because they were the conventional ones.

It's like saying people who can drive manual transmission cars well are better drivers than those who've only driven automatic transmission ones.

 

[Skrej]

Calling someone or something a 'glorified X' is a common way of stating it's made out to be better than it really is.

See definition 3b. Granted that's a verb entry, but like many verbs, we can turn the participle form into an adjective.

 

[Coffee Break]

@Barque and @Skrej,

Thank you very much for the explanations.
So "glorified" here has this meaning:

b
: to cause to be or seem to be better than the actual condition
the new position is just a glorified version of the old stockroom job

So Ernie is thinking that, drivers of electric trains are just fancy version of ticket collectors. According to Ernie, they have skills no better than ticket collectors (because electric trains are more easily driven compared to steam ones), but they are driving fancy electric trains, so they are "glorified ticket collectors".

I sincerely appreciate your help.