There's good news from inside the Beltway, and I hope and expect it to filter right down into the engineering department budgets on railroads large and small. The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 repealed one nasty tax on all railroads and added some much-needed tax credits to help the Class 2 and 3 properties. As we all know, the 4,3-cent tax on diesel fuel has been a pain in the fuel tank for many years. Originally passed as a deficit-reduction measure, the tax hung around even after the deficit left. Now it's finally going away, which means railroads will get to keep about $178 million that, until now, flowed to a bottomless pit in Washington, D.C., every year.
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