Notice2025-11508

Indexing the Annual Operating Revenues of Railroads

Primary source

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Published
June 24, 2025

Issuing agencies

Surface Transportation Board

Full Text

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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 119 (Tuesday, June 24, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 119 (Tuesday, June 24, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 26897-26898]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-11508]


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SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD

[Docket No. EP 748]


Indexing the Annual Operating Revenues of Railroads

    The Surface Transportation Board (Board) is publishing the annual 
deflator factor and inflation-adjusted railroad revenue thresholds for 
2024. The deflator factor is used by the railroads to adjust their 
gross annual operating revenues for classification purposes. This 
indexing methodology ensures that railroads are classified based on 
real business expansion and not on the effects of inflation. 
Classification is important because it determines the extent to which 
individual railroads must comply with the Board's reporting 
requirements.
    The Board's annual deflator factor is based on the annual average 
of the Producer Price Index (PPI) industry data for line-haul railroads 
published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and is used to 
deflate revenues for comparison with established revenue thresholds.
    Application of the annual deflator factors for 2020-2024 results in 
the following annual revenue thresholds:

[[Page 26898]]



                                         Railroad Revenue Thresholds \1\
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                          Year                                 Factor            Class I            Class II
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2020 \2\...............................................             1.0000        900,000,000         40,400,000
2021...................................................             0.9535        943,898,958         42,370,575
2022...................................................             0.8721      1,032,002,719         46,325,455
2023...................................................             0.8541      1,053,709,560         47,299,851
2024...................................................             0.8375      1,074,600,816         48,237,637
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    The annual inflation-adjusted deflator factor and revenue 
thresholds for 2024 are effective January 1, 2024. Notice of this 
decision will be published in the Federal Register.
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    \1\ In Montana Rail Link, Inc., & Wisconsin Central Ltd., Joint 
Petition for Rulemaking with Respect to 49 CFR part 1201, 8 I.C.C.2d 
625 (1992), the Board's predecessor, the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, raised the revenue classification level for Class I 
railroads from $50 million (1978 dollars) to $250 million (1991 
dollars), effective for the reporting year beginning January 1, 
1992. The Class II threshold was also raised from $10 million (1978 
dollars) to $20 million (1991 dollars). In Montana Rail Link, Inc.--
Petition for Rulemaking--Classification of Carriers, EP 763 (STB 
served Apr. 5, 2021), the revenue classification level for Class I 
railroads was raised from $250 million (1991 dollars) to $900 
million (2019 dollars), and the Class II threshold was converted and 
rounded from $20 million (1991 dollars) to $40.4 million (2019 
dollars), effective for the reporting year beginning January 1, 
2020.
    \2\ The 2020 and subsequent values are based on the thresholds 
established in Docket No. EP 763, and the deflator factor is indexed 
with a base year of 2019. As the PPI industry index for Line-haul 
railroads remained the same from 2019 to 2020, the annual deflator 
factor for 2020 was 1.0000.
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    By the Board, Kristen Monaco, Ph.D., Director, Office of Economics.

Zantori Dickerson,
Clearance Clerk.
[FR Doc. 2025-11508 Filed 6-23-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4915-01-P


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Indexed from Federal Register on June 24, 2025.

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