National Field Director of GoRail Michael Gaynor met with the county commissioners Thursday to discuss the current state of the freight railroad industry.
“The condition of the track infrastructure today is probably the best condition it’s ever been in the history of the nation,” Gaynor stated.
Over the past 30 years, the railroad industry has invested about $525 billion into its infrastructure, Gaynor said. “Right now, the railroads combined are investing about $25 billion into the nation’s freight rail infrastructure. About $11 billion of that is for maintaining the current system and about $13 ½ billion was invested last year in expanding the capacity of the system so that they can accommodate more freight on the rail network,” he said.
The benefits of freight rail, Gaynor said, include reducing congestion on the highway, reducing environmental impacts of shipping goods, and reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign sources of oil.
Quoting an estimate made by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Gaynor said that freight movement is projected to see a 92 percent increase by 2035. “That’s nearly doubling the amount of freight that we’re going to move as a nation,” Gaynor said.
Gaynor said that federal government officials are proposing to reinstitute federal oversight of the railroad industry–a model that was used before 1980.
However, since 1980, he said, “When the federal government rolled back some stifling regulations that were really preventing the railroads from being revenue adequate and having the ability to reinvest in their infrastructure and maintain that infrastructure adequately, the railroads have gone through a renaissance.”
He said that freight rail has a significant economic impact in Ohio. “Ohio has the third largest rail infrastructure in the nation in terms of miles. That gives us a great economic advantage when it comes to competing against other states for companies that are relocating and the jobs that they bring,” Gaynor stated.
“Railroads can move enormous amounts of freight for a relatively low cost per mile, while diesel fuel is $4.50 a gallon, and that impacts the cost of goods being delivered. I would think that would help put the railroads back into a heck of a competitive position relative to moving huge amounts of material,” said Commissioner Ed Olson.
Gaynor agreed that fuel efficiency has helped the railroad industry and noted, “The railroads have changed their business model. They’re not the railroads that existed 30 years ago; they’re much more efficient. The strategy on how we move goods around the nation has changed significantly. Intermodal has really taken off over the last decade.”
“What intermodal does,” he continued, “is it allows for the quick and efficient transfer from one mode the next so that shippers can now move their goods the farthest distance possible on the most fuel-efficient, cost-effective mode of transportation, which is rail.”
He said that Ohio has the second highest number of intermodal yards in the nation.
Zeroing in on Richland County, Gaynor said, “The impact on rail here in Richland County is in the companies that it is supporting.”
He highlighted McFarland Cascade of Mansfield and Next Generation Films, Inc. in Lexington as companies that rely heavily on the use of rail freight transport.
In 2005, Next Generation Films used about 10 rail cars a year; last year, comparatively, they used about 950 rail cars, said Gaynor.
“What railroads are offering to Richland County is the economic impact,” said Gaynor.
GoRail is a national nonprofit 501c4 that works to promote public benefits of freight rail.
