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The commonwealth of Pennsylvania has approved grants totaling $20 million to help seven railroads and five businesses fund freight-rail infrastructure improvement projects. The grants are administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's Bureau of Rail Freight, Ports & Waterways.

Among the grants, the commonwealth will provide:
• $3.33 million to CSX Transportation to improve overheard clearances at 16 locations to accommodate double-stack trains carrying containers to and from Philadelphia;
• $2.5 million to the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad Co. to build the Nesquehoning Bridge over the Lehigh River to connect the railroad's Lehigh division and Carbon & Schuylkill branch;
• $2.24 million to the Pittsburgh and Ohio Central Railroad Inc. to rehabilitate track and repair bridges;
• $2.24 million to the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad Inc. to continue rehabilitating track to handle transformer and coal shipments for a Homer City power station;
• $2.1 million to United States Gypsum to build an industrial rail yard adjacent to a power plant;
• $1.5 million to the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority to rehabilitate track for a Lycoming Valley Railroad intermodal facility at Newberry Yard and build a bulk transfer facility, and an additional $1.33 million to the authority to rehabilitate track for the Juniata Valley Railroad;
• $1.25 million to Sunnyside Ethanol L.L.C. to rehabilitate track serving a new ethanol facility;
• $1.02 million to the Allegheny Valley Railroad Co. to rehabilitate three bridges, including the replacement of bridge timbers on the Allegheny River Bridge; and
• $1 million to Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp. to remove and reconstruct a siding on the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad to improve an interchange with Norfolk Southern Railway.