FY 25 PIDP NOFO (Closes Sept. 10, 2025)
The IIJA was signed into law in 2021. This legislation has been critical for the thousands of shippers and communities served by over 600 short line railroads. It provides the federal government with tools to leverage partnership capital projects with small railroads. These investments drive economic development and growth, improve safety, implement innovative technologies, and reduce logistics costs to improve American competitiveness, industrial strength and economic independence.
Short line railroads typically began their lives taking over rail lines carrying smaller amounts of freight that would have otherwise been abandoned. The growth of the short line industry in recent decades has been, in part, a policy solution addressing major industry challenges tackled during the restructuring of America’s freight rail industry and legal framework in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Notably, short lines enabled preservation of economic freight rail service for thousands of rural and smaller shippers and communities.
Short line tracks and infrastructure, however, typically came to them suffering from decades of deferred maintenance. This includes expensive bridges and tunnels — built by prior large railroad owners — that were reaching the end of their lifespans. Short lines often operate many miles of track that aren’t strong enough to safely carry the national network standard 286,000-pound freight railcars.
Short line railroading today is one of the most capital-intensive industries and 25 to 33 percent of annual revenues are plowed back into the infrastructure. But these smaller railroads have limited revenue to work with and often face an insurmountable hill to climb to address legacy capital burdens. At least $12 billion in investment is needed to achieve a stable state of good repair of their infrastructure and full and efficient interoperability with the national freight railroad network.
IIJA was put into place at a pivotal time to help the small railroad industry meet these challenges. It dramatically increased resources for several programs that can support freight rail capital projects, including:
Thanks to these resources, short lines have been able to partner effectively with the federal government, leveraging federal support to begin making significant headway on their capital backlogs. Often these projects bring together non-federal matching funds not only from short lines, but from states, local communities and other private partners like rail shippers.
The IIJA is a powerful tool to enhance safety, reduce supply chain bottlenecks, and improve freight rail logistics efficiency for thousands of shippers and communities. ASLRRA urges Congress to fully fund CRISI and other freight rail-eligible IIJA programs at the maximum authorized amount in each year’s annual appropriations process.
