National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association

National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association
Abbreviation	NRC
Formation	1978
Type	Trade Association
Legal status	Active
Purpose/focus	Advocate, public voice, educator, research, lobbying, safety & efficiency of railroad construction industry
Headquarters	500 New Jersey Ave NW Suite 400
Location	Washington, DC United States
Region served	North America Canada
Membership	Railroad contractors, suppliers, and associated professional service firms
President	Chuck Baker
Staff	4 (DC office)
Website	http://www.nrcma.org/

The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, Inc. (NRC) is a trade association in the railroad and rail transit construction industry. The NRC is a non-profit trade association, governed by a Board of Directors and administered by the Washington, DC government relations firm, Chambers, Conlon, and Hartwell, LLC. NRC members include rail construction and maintenance contractors such as Balfour Beatty Rail, Inc. (www.bbri.com), Colo Railroad Builders (www.colorr.com), Delta Railroad Construction, Inc. (www.deltarr.com), Herzog Contracting Corp. (www.herzogcompanies.com), Kiewit Western Co. (www.kiewit.com), Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc. (www.loram.com), RailWorks Corporation (www.railworks.com), and Stacy and Witbeck, Inc (www.stacywitbeck.com); in addition to supplier companies such as A&K Railroad Materials, Inc. (www.akrailroad.com), Harsco Rail (www.harscorail.com), L. B. Foster Company (www.lbfoster.com), Progress Rail Services, Inc. (www.progressrail.com), and Western-Cullen-Hayes, Inc. (www.wch.com).

The NRC holds an annual conference and exhibition each January, usually taking place in South Florida or Southern California and encompassing more than 800 attendees and about 90 exhibitors. Attendees include executives from rail construction contractors, suppliers, and associated professional service firms. Speakers are generally engineering executives from freight railroads, executives and administrators of public rail transit agencies, and a small number of related experts on topics such as railroad financial analysis and rail-related federal legislative developments. The first NRC Conference took place in 1973 and has been held annually without interruption ever since.

The NRC hosts an annual railroad construction and maintenance equipment auction each spring. In the auction, NRC member companies buy and sell rail construction and maintenance equipment from each other and from railroads that participate. The auctions have ranged in size from 150 to 300 pieces of equipment, with a total value of $400,000 to $750,000. The first NRC-organized auction took place in March 2004, and have been held annually without interruption ever since.

The NRC participates in organizing an annual "Railroad Day on Capitol Hill" event, in cooperation with the lead organizations, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) and the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

See Also

• American Public Transportation Association (APTA)
• American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA)

References

• NRC - Official site
• April 29, 2011 interview in rail industry trade journal Railway Track & Structures with NRC Chairman of the Board Jim Perkins and President Chuck Baker
• April 2011 story in rail industry trade journal Progressive Railroading entitled "Maintenance of Way: NRC and Contractor Safety
• March 10, 2011 story in rail industry trade journal Railway Track & Structures about the NRC's January 2011 Conference in Florida