For the past five years, it was a broken record railroad contractors and suppliers loved hearing: increased capital spending budgets for Class is. What does 2016 sound like? Although freight railroads were several weeks away from revealing their capital spending plans as of press time, contractors and suppliers were bracing for a slight step back from the record $29 billion allocated for capital improvements in 2015. "It's not going to be a record - [our] members are definitely starting to see that already," says Chuck Baker, president of the National Railroad Construction & Maintenance Association (NRC), which represents railroad contractors and suppliers. "A few are saying, 'This year's been great, we've been really busy.' But they don't have the kind of backlog that they've had the last couple years." Regardless, Baker is bullish on the near-term prospects for the railroad contracting crowd. Whatever the actual dollar figure turns out to be, 2016 freight-rail spending should still be strong, he says. Add in potential increases in short-line railroad and transit spending, and continued service and product innovation, and it appears that 2016 is shaping up as a year of steady growth for contractors, Baker believes.
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