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Inventory Advantage

CTA rail “map plotting” has application as an infrastructure inventory management tool.  Railroads are undergoing significant change with mergers, consolidations, sales and line “spin offs”. Accurate ROW (right-of-way) records are not always available to new railroad owners/managers.

PHYSICAL CHANGES: Rail customers change, industrial parks are developed, new grade crossings are built, technologies and new markets drive innovative rail shipment opportunities. Updating ROW inventory helps manage change. 

RAIL IMPROVEMENT GRANTS: Federal, State and Local authorities fund railroad improvements.  It’s valuable to have a current inventory of rail infrastructure to support the need for such grants or loans. The value is a visual map of a rail line, showing its potential in relationship to area transportation needs. Grant decisions are based on obtaining the best return on the improvements funded. 
 
GRADE CROSSING INVENTORY: In addition to the USDOT/FRA inventory, a number of State and local governments have begun their own inventory of grade crossings. An accurate inventory is valuable for highway planning, crossing maintenance and focused safety enforcement.  Many of the existing grade crossing entries are inaccurate due to rail abandonments, rail line ownership changes, human data entry error and changes in the highway system.   

ROW ACQUISITION: An accurate inventory is useful in analysis for offers to buy, sell, lease or merge rail operations.  The inventory provides analysts and planners with timely infrastructure data upon which to improve the decision making process. 

ROW CONSTRUCTION:  Map plotting helps portray to engineers and construction bidders the specific locations where projects are to take place and their relative position to other rail and geographic features.  It fosters focused, realistic and objective competitive bidding. 

UTILITY INVENTORY: A CTA ROW project can assist in locating and developing an inventory of ROW utility incursion. ROW maps with utilities marked helps in negotiating leases.  

Accurate ROW records are not always available