PSAP transports products for Washington businesses safely and affordably. Keeping these businesses moving helps support non-railroad jobs: every freight rail job sustains another 4.5 jobs elsewhere. PSAP employs 43 highly skilled professionals who enjoy benefits, technical training and professional growth opportunities. In Washington State, there are 4,000 railroad employees and the freight rail industry employs more than 180,000 nationwide.
PSAP is affordable for businesses—but how much does PSAP cost taxpayers? $0.00. Unlike trucks, barges, and airlines that operate using infrastructure funded mainly by taxpayers, PSAP and Washington’s other privately owned freight railroads operate almost exclusively on infrastructure they own, build, maintain and pay for themselves.
Freight railroads have played a transformational role in the development of America by revolutionizing transportation and catalyzing the country’s economic development for more than 180 years. Today, America’s freight railroads serve nearly every industrial, wholesale, retail and resource-based sector of the economy, operating over a network of nearly 140,000 miles. Railroads account for approximately 40 percent of intercity freight volume—more than any other mode of transportation.
Freight railroads carry the cargo that sustains American commerce in large cities and small towns across the country. Freight railroads have invested more than $575 billion since 1980—including record investments of $115 billion from 2009 to 2013—to maintain and improve tracks, bridges, locomotives, freight cars and other infrastructure and equipment. These investments help increase the capacity and safety of the rail network to meet America’s growing and changing economy.