Matt Rose---BNSF panhandler
March 16, 2010
In fact, there is a clear trend in recent years toward making
our business more difficult and costly.

The best example that I can give you is the positive train
control mandate--a $10 billion expenditure by 2015. The cost
benefit ratio is 22:1. The railroads will have to cut other
expenditures to pay for it. We spent $9 billion last year on
maintenance and expansion, and we’ll spend $9 billion this year,
except $700 million of that will be on the first steps of PTC
implementation. What will fall out of the budget? What will fall
out when the PTC spend is $1.2 billion a year in 2011?
Expansion? Certainly! But what about tie replacement and other
things that make the railroad safer? It’s not a threat, it’s just the
way it is. Something has to give. There needs to be a more reasonable deployment of PTC, and Congress has to help us pay
for it. Congress should enact a railroad tax credit this year!