supporting statement Form RE&I- July 2012fin

2140-0013
July 2012

SUPPORTING STATEMENT - RE&I

A. Justification:
1. Why the collection is necessary. The Surface Transportation Board (Board) has broad
statutory authority to provide economic regulatory oversight of railroads, addressing such matters
as rates, service, the construction, acquisition and abandonment of rail lines, carrier mergers, and
interchange of traffic among carriers (49 U.S.C. §§ 10101-11908). Class I railroads are required
to file Quarterly Report Revenues, Expenses, and Income (RE&I), pursuant to authority in 49
U.S.C. §§ 11145 and 11162-64 and the Board’s regulations at 49 C.F.R. § 1243.1. The Quarterly
RE&I Report discloses net railway operating income on a quarterly and year-to-date basis for the
current and prior year.
2. How the collection will be used. The Board uses the information in the RE&I report
to ensure competitive and efficient transportation through general oversight programs that
monitor and forecast the financial and operating condition of railroads, and through regulation of
railroad rate and service issues and rail restructuring proposals, including railroad mergers,
consolidations, acquisitions of control, and abandonments. Information from the reports is also
used by the Board, other Federal agencies, and industry groups to monitor and assess industry
growth and operations, detect changes in carrier financial stability, and identify trends that may
affect the national transportation system. Timely individual carrier information, as well as the
accumulation of meaningful data from this group of seven railroads, is needed in the Board’s
decision-making process.
3. Extent of automated information collection. For many years, the respondent carriers
have maintained the form for the RE&I report in a computerized format. Each railroad enters its
data on its own computerized version of the form and submits a pdf of the required signed copy
to the Board. The Board facilitates timely filing by permitting responders to fax or email the
form. The Board has considered electronic filing, but determined that, because the data is
maintained in different electronic formats by the respondent carriers, electronic filing would not
be useful to the Board. In addition, any requirement for this report to be filed in a specific
electronic format would necessarily impose a greater cost burden on the respondents.
4. Identification of duplication. No other Federal agency collects the information in the
RE&I report, nor is this information available from any other source. Therefore, there will be no
duplication of information. In most instances, the information sought is unique to each carrier.
5. Effects on small business. No small entities will be affected by the collection of this
information. This report is applicable only to Class I railroads, which have operating revenues in
excess of $250 million (1991 dollars) adjusted for inflation. The Board has adopted an indexing

methodology that will ensure that regulated carriers are classified based on real business
expansion, rather than the effects of inflation.
6. Impact of less frequent collections. The Board cannot fulfill its statutory
responsibilities with less than the quarterly reporting required for this collection.
7. Special circumstances. No special circumstances described in question 7 apply to this
collection.
8. Compliance with 5 C.F.R. § 1320.8. The Board published a notice in the Federal
Register, providing a 60-day comments period regarding this collection. See 77 Fed. Reg. 212901 (Jan. 13, 2012). No comments were submitted. As required, the Board has published a notice
providing a 30-day comment period, with comments to be sent to OMB. See 77 Fed. Reg.
27540.
9. Payments or gifts to respondents. The Board does not provide any payment or gift to
respondents.
10. Assurance of confidentiality. All information collected through this report is
available to the public.
11. Justification for collection of sensitive information. This collection contains no
information of a sensitive nature.
12. Estimation of burden hours for respondents. The following information pertains to
the estimate of burden hours associated with this collection:
(1) Number of respondents: 7
(2) Frequency of response: Each Class I carrier is required to file the RE&I
report quarterly.
(3) Annual hour burden per respondent: Based on information provided by the
railroad industry, we estimate a per-respondent-railroad burden of no more than 24 hours (6
hours per report), which includes time spent converting the data from the carrier’s individual
accounting system to the Board’s Uniform System of Accounts (USOA) (see 49 U.S.C. §§
11141-43, 11161-64; 49 C.F.R. §§ 1200-1201) for presentation in the R-1 format for consistency
of information across all reporting railroads. The total annual burden hours for all seven carriers
is estimated at not more than 168 hours.
13. Other costs to respondents: (a) Continuing this existing collection will impose no
start-up costs on respondents. (b) No non-hour costs for operation, maintenance, or purchase of
services associated with this collection has been identified. This report is filed electronically.
14. Estimated costs to the Board. We estimate that it takes six hours (GS 13/1 at $52.90

hourly wage, including benefits) annually to compile selected data from the 28 filings for the
report for our website (Class I Freight Railroads, Selected Earnings Data) and two hours (GS
14/10 at $81.26 hourly wage, including benefits) to post the results on the website, resulting in a
total cost of $480.
15. Changes in burden hours. No change in burden hours is requested.
16. Plans for tabulation and publication: Certain information from these reports is
compiled and published on the Board’s website as a Quarterly Selected Earnings Report at
.
17. Display of expiration date for OMB approval. No exception is sought. The control
number and expiration date for this collection appear on the form.
18. Exceptions to Certification Statement. Not applicable

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods:
Not applicable