The Final IIJA-Funded CRISI: FRA Stacks Two Fiscal Years Into a $2.04 Billion Rail Grant Round Closing June 25

The Federal Railroad Administration's Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program has been the workhorse of American rail funding since it was created by the FAST Act in 2015. In good years it awards $300 million to $400 million. In recent years, supercharged by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's advance appropriations, it has cleared $1.4 billion in a single cycle. None of that prepared the field for what FRA published on April 20: a combined fiscal year 2025 and 2026 Notice of Funding Opportunity totaling $2,039,246,480, with a fast-moving deadline of June 25, 2026 — extended once already from June 22.

This is, by FRA's own framing, the last CRISI round backed by IIJA advance appropriations. After this, the program reverts to whatever Congress chooses to appropriate annually — a number that the Trump administration's FY2027 budget request and ongoing rescission debates have placed under significant pressure. For freight railroads, transit agencies with shared track, and the rural communities that depend on short-line connectivity, this round is not just large. It is, in effect, the last guaranteed bite at the IIJA apple. (See also our Granted News brief for the original announcement summary.)

What the numbers actually mean

Two billion dollars sounds enormous until you compare it against the rail industry's deferred maintenance backlog, which Class II and Class III railroads alone estimate at more than $7 billion. FRA expects roughly 130 awards out of this round, which math out to about $15.7 million per award on average. The actual distribution will be far more uneven: a handful of large state DOT-led capacity projects will likely consume $100 million or more apiece, while dozens of grade-crossing safety projects and short-line tie-and-rail programs will land between $1 million and $10 million.

What makes the FY25/26 NOFO structurally different from earlier rounds is the dedicated carve-outs Congress wrote into the appropriations. The headline number reflects three nested pots:

• $532.5 million for rural projects (25% of the total) — projects where at least half the work occurs in areas meeting the U.S. Department of Transportation's rural definition (generally communities under 50,000).
• $66 million for "special transportation circumstances" — historically used for tribal projects, isolated systems like Alaska Railroad, and corridors with unique geographic constraints.
• $87.4 million for congressionally directed projects — earmarks attached to specific corridors and named in appropriations report language.

The non-set-aside pool — roughly $1.35 billion — is where the broad national competition happens. That is still the largest single CRISI pot in program history.

Eligibility is broader than most applicants realize

CRISI's eligibility list is deliberately expansive, which is one reason it has become the default destination for rail-adjacent capital projects that don't fit cleanly into Federal Transit Administration or Build America Bureau programs. Eligible applicants include:

• States, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories
• Local governments, including counties, cities, and townships
• Interstate compacts
• Public agencies and authorities, including port authorities
• Class II and Class III freight railroads (short lines and regionals)
• Amtrak and other intercity passenger rail carriers
• Federally recognized Indian Tribes
• Universities and transportation research centers
• Joint applicants combining any of the above
• A non-profit labor organization representing rail workers (for workforce projects only)

Notably absent: Class I railroads cannot apply directly. They can, however, be partners on projects led by eligible applicants, and they often serve as the implementing partner on grade-separation projects where a state DOT is the named grantee. Strategic partnerships of this kind have produced some of the largest awards in CRISI history, including the $250 million Bridging the Gap project in California's Inland Empire and multiple multi-state corridor capacity programs.

The eligible-project taxonomy keeps expanding

CRISI funds two broad categories: capital projects and non-capital projects. The capital side dominates the dollar volume but the non-capital side is where smaller nonprofits and labor organizations can compete.

Capital-eligible activities include grade crossing safety improvements (the single largest category by award count), positive train control deployment and migration, short line infrastructure rehabilitation, rail line relocation, capacity expansion in congested corridors, multi-modal terminals, locomotive rehabilitation toward Tier 4 standards, and hazardous materials response planning. The FY25/26 NOFO also formally added a new emphasis on resilience and climate adaptation — flood-prone track segments, wildfire risk reduction, and slope stabilization — categories that historically lived inside other DOT programs.

Non-capital activities cover workforce development, regional safety partnerships, trespasser prevention, and research on novel rail technology. These typically award between $300,000 and $3 million each and are dramatically less competitive on a dollar-per-applicant basis.

The match math, and why FRA's stated preferences matter

CRISI's statutory cost share is 80% federal / 20% non-federal. FRA, however, has consistently expressed a preference for projects with federal shares at or below 50%, and has used that preference as a tiebreaker in scoring. Rural projects can request a higher federal share, but applicants who match the bare statutory minimum should expect to lose points compared to peers contributing more.

Practically, this means a successful $20 million CRISI request usually shows up as a $40-million-plus total project cost, with state DOT or local match dollars, in-kind property contributions, or Class I railroad cost-sharing filling the gap. The most successful short-line applicants in recent cycles have packaged state-level rail assistance funds (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Texas, and Washington run particularly active state rail programs) as the match.

Evaluation: project readiness is the silent kingmaker

FRA's published evaluation criteria emphasize technical merit, project readiness, anticipated benefits, and alignment with statutory priorities. The criterion that has historically driven outcomes more than any other is project readiness — measured by the project's design phase, NEPA status, real estate posture, and ability to obligate funds within FRA's compressed timelines.

For the FY25/26 round, FRA has been blunter than usual: projects in Final Design or Construction phases will be preferred over projects still completing preliminary engineering. NEPA-cleared projects beat NEPA-pending. Projects with binding agreements between rail operators and infrastructure owners beat handshake commitments. And projects that have already secured their non-federal match in writing beat projects still negotiating.

This emphasis is partly substantive — FRA is under congressional pressure to demonstrate obligation rates — and partly political. The Trump administration has signaled that grants whose construction can begin in calendar 2026 will be treated more favorably than those still in design when an award is made.

Strategic implications for the next four weeks

For applicants still considering whether to submit, the calendar is brutal but not impossible. Five strategic considerations worth weighing:

First, the rural set-aside is structurally underutilized. In past CRISI rounds, the rural carve-out has typically attracted fewer applications per dollar available than the open national pool. Short lines serving agricultural shippers, tribal rail authorities, and small communities along regional corridors should evaluate whether their geography qualifies. The 50%-of-project-location-in-rural rule allows projects spanning rural and small-urban areas to qualify if the rural side dominates.

Second, scope matters more than scale. FRA has shown a preference for tightly scoped, deliverable projects over sprawling multi-component programs. A $4 million tie-and-rail rehabilitation on a defined corridor segment, fully designed, with state DOT match secured, scores better than a $40 million wish-list program assembled in three weeks.

Third, grade crossing safety projects remain the path of least resistance. They have the most predictable engineering, the clearest benefits, the lowest NEPA complexity, and a built-in safety justification that aligns with FRA's statutory mandate. They are also the category most likely to fund first-time CRISI applicants.

Fourth, non-capital workforce projects are wildly under-applied for. Labor organizations, community colleges along major freight corridors, and partnership programs with railroad apprenticeship schools should consider non-capital tracks where competition per dollar is markedly lower.

Fifth, the post-IIJA cliff is real. Whatever Congress appropriates for CRISI in FY2027 will almost certainly be smaller — perhaps dramatically smaller — than this round. Applicants with credible projects that could plausibly compete in either FY26 or FY27 should weigh whether the marginal cost of accelerating an FY26 application is worth avoiding the FY27 austerity scenario.

What happens after June 25

FRA has historically announced CRISI awards three to five months after the application deadline. For the FY25/26 round, expect awards announced between October 2026 and January 2027, with grant agreements signed through spring 2027. Construction obligation milestones will be tighter than past rounds — FRA has informally suggested it wants funds obligated within 18 months of award.

For applicants who miss this round, the next CRISI cycle will be timed to whatever Congress appropriates in the FY2027 process. Given the budgetary trajectory, that cycle may not open until late 2027 and may carry significantly less than $1 billion in available funds. For freight rail capital planning, this combined NOFO is the most consequential funding event of the next 24 months, and likely longer.