April 2014
| Business World Magazine | 45
and talk. We have a number of committees
in which we advance certain issues, such as
technology, legislative policy, mechanical,
passenger – we have a committee that looks
at that actually, because 40 or 50 short lines
cross inter-city passenger traffic or commut-
er traffic. So that’s the flag we plant in the
ground – is to try and be multi-faceted.
BW: Talk about your convention later this
month.
MEARS:
We call it the premier event of
the railroad industry – it’s not just for little
guys, it’s for everybody. That event has been
growing in popularity and we now have, last
year we had nearly 2,000 people attend, and
we also have a reputation for putting on ex-
cellent and informative programs, as well as
having the opportunity for these hard-work-
ing people to have a little bit of fun while
they’re there, and, I mean in a totally respect-
able way.
BW: If I’m a short line railroad and I’m a
member of the organization, what issues
are on the top of my agenda right now?
What am I most concerned about? What is
the membership most often coming to you
about with issues?
MEARS:
I think the ones they’re coming to
us the most about are how to address the vari-
ous regulatory requirements that are ongo-
ing. The No. 1 legislative issue is that we have
a short line tax credit that the particulars of
are basically that you can get up to a $3,500
credit for any infrastructure work that you do.
That is a very important one, because many of
these railroads were cast off from the bigger
railroads, not having a lot of maintenance the
last couple of years of their operation, because
they were knowing that they were probably
going to get rid of them. So that has been the
No. 1 effort. We’ve had a tax credit since, I
believe 2004, that’s just done a world of good
in helping these railroads to improve their in-
frastructure and rehabilitate it such that they
can serve more customers and serve them bet-
ter. The tax credit expired at the end of 2013,
