Commentary

Electric Harley Davidsons, NASCAR track upgrades, chick flicks, Puerto Rican rum—and small-road tax credits

If you think new rail, crossties, and spikes for regional and short line railroads, electric power for Harley Davidson motorcycles, upgrades for NASCAR race tracks, chick flicks at the cinema, and a couple of shots of Puerto Rican rum in your Coke have little in common, think again.
Commentary

Words of praise for a Class I

I’ve known Andy M. Muller Jr., chairman and CEO of Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad Co., for close to 30 years, when he was just getting started in the business, operating local freight and steam-powered tourist trains on a short branch line emanating from Reading Pa.
Commentary

Adore or abhor income protection? Thank Jim Hodgson

Perhaps no individual so significantly affected the payment of income protection to rail workers as did President Nixon’s labor secretary, James D. Hodgson, who died Nov. 28 at age 96.

Commentary

Takeaways from CP’s Investor Conference

Canadian Pacific held its annual Investor Conference Dec. 4-5 in New York City; its first since Hunter Harrison took over as President and CEO and began dramatically reshaping the railroad. I caught Harrison’s Tuesday evening opener via webcast and was impressed with what I heard, teeing up, as it did, the Wednesday main event, which CP Vice President Investor Relations Janet Weiss invited me to attend.

Commentary

DeMint departure resets reregulation game

The late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson observed, “A week is a long time in politics.” And what a week it was on Capitol Hill.
Commentary

Mad Money’s Jim Cramer: KCS “my new favorite stock”

No need for me to say anything about Kansas City Southern. Jim Cramer, CNBC’s host of “Mad Money,” says it all in this segment on the railroad’s growth in Mexico.
Commentary

Remembering Warren Rudman—and a Greek tragedy at the ICC

Even The New York Times, the nation’s newspaper of record, missed, in its lengthy obituary, the absorbing connection between railroads and former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, who died Nov. 19 at age 82.

Commentary

UP, with short lines, strives for customer value

Union Pacific’s annual gathering of short lines in late October was all about giving short lines access to more tools, neatly arranged for ease of access, to bring more business to the railroad.

Commentary

Railroad customers can do more to help themselves

The Pacific Northwest Association of Rail Shippers fall meeting in Eugene, Ore. was instructive, to say the least. I thought the session theme—“What do you want your railroad to look like in five years?”—was particularly fitting, given the slow volume improvement from the 2006-7 peaks and the better operating metrics over the same time.

Commentary

Rail oil prospects excite Wall Street

Railroads these days are enjoying good “fracking” business—no pun intended—and Wall Street has taken notice.

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