This Thursday, nearly 500 freight rail supporters–from railroad personnel to shippers and suppliers to advocates–will gather for Railroad Day on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to thank Congress for the progress made on freight  in the FAST Act and to advocate for policies that will move the industry in the right direction.

The freight rail industry is primarily privatized, using infrastructure owned, built, maintained and paid for by freight operators. Over the last 35 years, substantial regulatory and technological changes have helped improve the industry’s productivity, affordability and viability. In 1980, Congress revamped and deregulated the freight system with the Staggers Rail Act, which allowed freight operators to carry more goods for longer distances. Gradual improvements over the years have also made rail safer and more efficient. As a result of these changes, the cost of moving goods via rail fell by 43 percent since 1981, and the amount of freight moved has doubled while fuel consumption has remained relatively stagnant. Increased profits allowed the industry to reinvest over $600 billion into infrastructure between 1980 and 2015.

Freight rail is better for the environment, more cost-efficient and safer compared to trucks. Rail moves freight four times more efficiently than a typical truck, and every ton of cargo moved by rail instead of highway reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent. A single train carries as much as several hundred trucks do, meaning less congestion and wear on the nation’s roads. Even though rail freight carried just 11 percent of the nation’s freight in 2011, AASHTO estimates shifting all that cargo to trucks would increase transportation costs by nearly $69 billion a year. Fewer and smaller trucks on our streets and roads also means fewer deadly crashes.

Besides reforming freight regulations, though, national policy on freight has been scattered at best. But momentum over the last year has been building quickly. Last October, USDOT released a Draft National Freight Plan, and in December, the enactment of the FAST Act provides dedicated, multi-year funding for freight infrastructure and requires states to develop their own freight plans. This week, USDOT showed they’re moving along swiftly by requesting applications for the new FASTLANE Grant Program, which provides $800 million in funding to critical freight and highway projects across the nation.