PROCEDURES FOR DEVELOPING STATE RAIL PLANS

Several state rail plans have been developed under the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 and the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976. These plans typically use an index method to rank those lines that are eligible for continuation subsidies. The usefulness and applicability of the index procedure, however, are characterized by several problems. The purpose of this paper is to review these problems and to present an alternative method of ranking branch rail lines. This method is the benefit-cost ratio approach, which was used to develop the Iowa Department of Transportation rail plan. The ratio provides estimates, first, of the dollar value of each rail line to shippers, receivers, and the community and, second, of the annualized present dollar value of the cost of operating, maintaining, and upgrading the rail line.