A dozen Watco Team members were among a record-setting number of citizen lobbyist railroaders, suppliers, and Customers who swarmed Washington, D.C., last week for the annual Railroad Day on Capitol Hill.
Their goal: To advocate for balanced regulation, the continuance of the 45G tax credit that supports rail investment, and the holding of truck size and weight at current levels.
This year, the American Short Line Railroad Association reported that 367 Congressional offices hosted meetings for 456 visitors at the annual event, held since 1999.
For Watco Team members Craig Richey, Gary Vaughn, Ryan Williams, Stefan Loeb, Ken Lucht, Tracie VanBecelaere, Stu Towner, Laura McNichol, Michael Gray, Tim Enayati, Doug Story, and Ed McKechnie, it was a chance to advocate for things that impact more than 1,000 Customers, nearly 4,000 Team members, and more than 5,000 miles of track across the U.S.
“We get to exercise our first amendment rights of getting our voices heard and petition the government with our concerns and issues that are important to us,” VanBecelaere said. “The representatives are always glad to see us, hear from people back home about what’s working and not working, and enjoy the feedback we provide them.”
VanBecelaere met with 11 members of Congress or their aides.
“We got the same message from all of them: that they understand how important transportation is to our nation, they understand that railroads pay the burden of the cost for their infrastructure, and they want to find a way to help us because improvements help us better serve customers and provide jobs to the communities we serve,” she said.
Consider this:
- Railroads operate on a 140,000-mile long network of track they almost exclusively own and maintain themselves.
- The nation’s major freight railroads plan to spend an estimated $22.3 billion in 2017 to build, maintain, and upgrade America’s rail network to ensure they can continue to deliver for the U.S. economy.
- Since 1980, freight railroads have poured $630 billion in private capital — more than 40 cents out of every revenue dollar — back into the nationwide rail network that serves both freight and passenger rail customers.
Ed McKechnie, who has advocated at Railroad Day on Capitol Hill for 16 years, sees it as a tremendous opportunity to tell the story of rail to the nation’s decision-makers.
“As we continue to work on public private partnerships to invest in the U.S. rail infrastructure, explaining what we do as an industry every day is a very important part of the American experience,” McKechnie said.
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