Supporting Statement - wage C - 2015extension

2140-0007
August 2015

SUPPORTING STATEMENT –REPORT
OF RAILROAD EMPLOYEES, WAGE FORM C,

A. Justification:
1. (a) 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 (large) railroads are required to provide wage statistics pursuant to 49 U.S.C. § 11145.
Amtrak also files this report. This collection shows, for each reporting carrier, the average
number of employees at mid-month in the six job classification groups (executive, professional,
maintenance-of-way, maintenance-of-equipment, transportation (train and engineer), and
transportation (other than train and engineer)) that encompass all railroad employees. See 49
C.F.R. § 1246. The Board is requesting an extension without modification of this information
collection, which will otherwise expire on August 31, 2015.

2. How the collection will be used. The Board uses the information in this collection to
forecast labor costs and measure the efficiency of the reporting railroads. The information also is
used by the Board to evaluate proposed regulated transactions that may impact rail employees,
including mergers and consolidations, acquisitions of control, purchases, and abandonments
under 49 U.S.C. §§ 10902-03 and 11326. Other federal agencies, including the Railroad
Retirement Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as industry groups, depend on this
report for information regarding the regulated railroad industry.
3. Extent of automated information collection. The railroads submit this report
electronically in Excel spreadsheet format.
4. Identification of duplication. No other Federal agency has economic regulatory
authority over freight rail transportation. Because no other Federal agency collects the
information in this report, nor is this information available from any other source, 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 reporting requirement applies only to Amtrak and to the Class I railroads,
which have operating revenues in excess of $250 million (1991 dollars) (adjusted for inflation
using 2014 data, the revenue threshold for a Class I rail carrier is $ 475,754,803). 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 without monthly information on employment.
7. Special circumstances. No special circumstances described in question 7 apply to this
collection.
8. Compliance with 5 C.F.R. § 1320.8. As required, the Board published a Federal
Register notice providing a 60-day comment period regarding this collection. No comments
were received. 80 Fed. Reg. 32201 (June 5, 2015). As also required, a Federal Register notice
providing an additional 30-day comment period is being published simultaneously with this
submission.

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, and is available on the Board’s website.
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: 8.
(2) Frequency of response: monthly.
(3) Annual hour burden per respondent: Based on information provided by the
railroad industry, we estimate an annual per-respondent burden of not more than 15 hours, based
on a per monthly report estimate of not more than 1.25 hours, which includes the time needed to
gather the information and edit, review, and complete the monthly employment report. Based on
this estimate, the eight respondents require a total of not more than 120 hours to complete the
monthly report.
13. No other costs to respondents: No non-hour costs for operation, maintenance, or
purchase of services associated with this collection have been identified: (a) Neither the existing
collection, nor the proposed modification, will impose start-up costs on respondents. (b) This
report is submitted to the agency electronically.
14. Estimated costs to the Board: We estimate that it takes 24 hours (GS 11/1 at $38.93
per hour, including benefits) annually to prepare a monthly compilation for our website; 12 hours
(GS 13/1 at $55.49 per hour, including benefits) to review (QA) the compilation; and an
additional one hour (Expert/Consultant at $68.37 per hour, including benefits) to post the results

on the website; resulting in a total annual cost to the government of $1,668.
15. Changes in burden hours. No change in burden hours is requested. The Board is
requesting an extension without modification.

16. Plans for tabulation and publication: These monthly carrier reports are posted on the
Board’s website 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