Big prize for whomever can post the good news that has boosted the market above last Wednesday's close, BEFORE the bad jobs data, very bad service sector news, and IMB collapse, and of course, the terrible housing news from yesterday and today.
Is KC Southern RR still working on the Super NAFTA highway into Gardner Kansas? A 10 lane highway w/3 track center from Mexico to by-pass the west coast ports and those nasty unions?
This is very bad news indeed. Given high oil prices, we will need to be moving more freight by rail rather than by road. If the RR's are not buying new rolling stock, seems like that "plan" will be far behind schedule. Clear evidence that even well positioned companies are pulling back on cap ex.
Does this mean that even though the RRs' lower fuel costs should make this a time of opportunity for them, they can't get the financing they need to grow their business?
"Big prize for whomever can post the good news that has boosted the market above last Wednesday's close, BEFORE the bad jobs data, very bad service sector news, and IMB collapse, and of course, the terrible housing news from yesterday and today.
I said GOOD news.
Anonymous | 07.08.08 - 12:34 pm | # "
Oil down, dollar up.
Now give me my prize.
By the way pharma and biotech are up today like I haven't seen in a long time..
The market may stink at the moment, but I certainly see a lot of BNSF unit trains and boxcar trains and tanker trains rolling through here (Minneapolis) with nothing but shiny new cars. They must have bought a lot during the past few years.
It makes "eminent sense" to raise interest rates as risks to the U.S. economy recede amid unacceptably high inflation, a top Federal Reserve policy-maker said on Tuesday.
"Just as easing policy aggressively in response to emerging downside risks made sense, withdrawing some of that stimulus as those risks diminish makes eminent sense as well," Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said in prepared remarks.
General Motors Corp. (GM), fighting to end a prolonged sales slump, will keep deals coming in July as its tries to clear out slow-selling pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.
The auto maker will offer six years of free financing on most full-size trucks, an extension of a sale initially slated to end June 30. Customers can get the discount only if they trade in a vehicle made no earlier than 1999. The previous offer applied to most GM cars and trucks.
Flooding has cut into prospects for grain output this year. That should reduce or restrain bulk freight rates, but is probably too short-term to account for a drop in orders for rolling stock.
So I was thinking late last night. Is it possible that ultrashort funds like SKF could actually serve to prop up the financial sector? My reasoning:
SKF provides investors a means to short financials without directly shorting/buying Puts. If these same investors made these same purchases directly it would have a direct impact pushing prices of financial shares downwards. However by purchasing SKF they are not moving the needle of those shares directly. Instead the relationship is indirect and the Proshares ETF is only responsible for providing a return 2X the real (smaller) change in financial shares.
In theory, if Proshares immediately purchased those levered short positions there would be an immediate downward pressure on stocks. But if there is a delay in their purchasing process, or if the fund chooses to 'sit' on the difference between how far SKF should theoretically rise (if that money was immediately put to work shorting) vs. how much it actually rises (based on prevailing financial prices, without that short money being immediately put to work)....then SKF would actually be preventing financial shares from falling farther. Without more knowledge of the inner workings of the ETF its impossible to say if this is happening, but I tend to be a bit skeptical of all things financial these days.
In any case, such a possibility is interesting to think about.
Like this comment?
If the rail raods can move more fright with less cars due to correct planning - what is so wrong in them not needing new cars ?
oil prices will sure cause deamnd to move to rail-roads as they are better than trucks and if they can do it more efficiant I might go longs on railroads in 2-3 years...
J.Goodwin said: "I wonder how Bombardier and Colorado Railcar are doing.
Greenbriar is just one company."
I had similar thoughts. I don't know anything about that market, who the players are, or their respective shares of market - but it occurred to me that Greenbrier might just be losing its market share.
Does anyone know if Greenbrier's competitors are experiencing similar sales slumps?
Credit rating agencies did not properly manage their conflicts of interests when assigning ratings to structured products such as mortgage-backed securities, a report by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday.
And psyops isn't really the answer either. They try, and they try. But it all comes back to manipulation. All I heard over the long weekend was how bad everything is.
Psyops ain't working too well.
And for those who say bailout in the works. Uh, the Fed doesn't have enough left to bail much out.
European Union finance ministers agreed to introduce legislation to oversee credit rating agencies after the U.S. subprime crisis highlighted the industry's failures.
One reason railroads are reluctant to invest is hedge funds and other financial preditors that are circling CSX and others. These raiders want RRs to reduce cap ex and delay replacement, while increasing debt and buying back stock.
Well, Colorado Railcar and Bombardier are both in the passenger rail business (Bombardier is well diversified of course, mainly in aircraft).
Bombardier's year ends on January 31st, so their second quarter results won't be out for about a month, but as of last quarter, their rail revenues were up between 35 and 40 percent.
Colorado Railcar is privately held, so there's no transparency there.
Alstom is in passenger rail, and their forecasts are up 25% on orders.
American Railcar does shipping cars of various sorts (hoppers etc), and their sales were flat year over year for the quarter ended March 31.
Trinity Industries (freight) sales were up in the 5-10% year over year for the quarter ended March 31.
Freightcar America's first quarter was dismal, they seem to have had some significant labor problems, and they stated that while demand for freight cars is up, and they have a significant backlog of orders (looks like about two quarters worth of their normal production, and a couple years of their first quarter 08 production), demand for coal cars was down.
Piggy backs are down - okay, the traffic from Asian ports to Cali is lower. Bulk cars are doing fine - tankers, grain and coal cars. I live near a main rail line & it is humping let me tell you... coal going east to the power plants & grain (what little that was carried over) going south to the ports (to get around the flooding).
Fewer piggy backs is pretty much a positive story... sort of like complaining that hypodermic needle production is lower because there are fewer heroin junkies. Not necessarily a bad thing.
I export grain and seeds, getting railcars is now very difficult, demand for grain for export is still very high. Personally i think it will slow down a little into Asia once the Asians face their inflation problems, but in the secondary railcar option market(each RR has negotiable option rights on railcars that trade freely) bids on rights to one car has gone from $100 to 225 for the month of August, last year they got as high as
$1100 per car. sounds to me like there is no excess or grain railcars.
Passenger rail looks to be a decent bet in times of high energy, at least for commute and inter-city runs.
The "Capitol" (San Jose to Sacramento) would add more trains if 1) it could get more cars (they'll be here in a couple of years) and 2) they could fit more runs in and around the higher-priority freight traffic. If less freight is coming into the West Coast, #2 might take care of itself.
Josh, dryfly, leftymn your comments are more insightful and worthy of note than those of some CEO using "the economy' as an excuse for the fact that the competition is kicking his butt. I see the same on the rail lines around here (Upstate NY).
Anonymous-Either fork over the prize or not only will you hear from my attorney, you will get to meet my cousins Rocko and Sluggo.
My company is looking into using more rail to both receive ingredients and ship product. Unfortunately, most of our suppliers and customers are not set up to use rail and our product is somewhat perishable. Even if we put spur lines into our distribution centers, our customers could not use them. So for now anyway, we are just passing on increased fuel costs to our customers who will no doubt pass it on to you.
I have no expertise in railroads, but to me the comments by Josh/dryfly/leftmn/other jim/steelhead seem to indicate one or both of two things. Either the railroads believe this surge in rail shipping is a temporary blip due to oil prices or they are expecting business climate to get much worse (in part, probably due to the same oil prices). Either way they are probably thinking that rail shipping is likely to trend down in the near future. As such, they are probably making due with what's on hand, watching cashflow, and preserving operating capital until things sort out (i.e., capital expenditures/increasing cash burn are the last thing on their minds regardless of the current demand).
There was a report a couple of weeks back that unexpectedly large numbers of unused railcars were being stored at yards in Montana. I don't remember the mix of car type being specified, but the report speculated that decreased import traffic was responsible.
TRN is an odd mix of businesses. They just sold a cement business in Texas. Their railcare business was just OK. They have a wind turbine components business that's going great guns, though.
However by purchasing SKF they are not moving the needle of those shares directly. Instead the relationship is indirect and the Proshares ETF is only responsible for providing a return 2X the real (smaller) change in financial shares.
Eh, assuming that SKF and kin are Equity Swaps, exchanging LIBOR for the inverse (or double) return on the GS financial index (I think it was), then whoever wrote that swap will be attempting to hedge their exposure by buying puts or selling short or the like. That will still put pressure on the stock price.
A recent news reports indicates that Russia has a shortage of rail cars for carrying coal. Can't the US export rail cars and sell them for devalued dollars, or have we become too inefficient even to sell primitive products to Russia?
Most railroads are run by finance not operating people so equipment replacement is a low priority.
From what I know of the rail business, this is probably half the explanation.
The drop in auto sales is going to lessen the demand for those rail cars, the midwest floods will probably means another 1 or 2 % drop in grain shipments. Bottom line is fewer goods are being purchased, so fewer goods are being transported. That's going to add life to existing rail cars (reduced wear) so that's probably the other half of the explanation.
other jim writes: My company is looking into using more rail to both receive ingredients and ship product. Unfortunately, most of our suppliers and customers are not set up to use rail and our product is somewhat perishable.
The answer you might be looking for is:
Domestic Intermodal.
I work in the Truck end of intermodal.
Trucks might be better for up to 700 mi,if you product is perishable.
Transloading, or crossing between railroads cost time & money,better to truck to a rail-head first.
oh,btw: $6 per Gallon of diesel I'm guessing is the break point for trucking.
Interesting that the railroad market stinks. However, it appears that the competitors are doing well and also CAT purchased MGE - a Brazilian train company for its rail services division.Link is below.
Coal and grain account for the largest rail car useage. Are we moving less of those now?
Not here in Denver. The coal "unit" trains are still running, and I haven't noticed any change in the amount of trains. They are 125 cars of coal, and 5 or 6 locomotives, and at about 80 tons of coal per car, that's about 10 kilotons of coal per train. And they roll every 90 minutes day and night down the BNSF tracks. Yep, I get bored enough on the light rail commute that I count cars, and I don't read because that's how I miss my stop.
You know those rail cars that carry cars from the auto plants? There are a lot of them just parked on sidings. I guess sales of cars and trucks are down so much that it isn't worth hauling all the empty cars back to the auto assembly plants, nor the ports of entry because, well, they don't have room on their sidings for the empty rail cars either. Since auto transport rail cars are very specialized rolling stock, there really isn't any other use that one can put them to, other than making trains longer than they need to be.
Public transport here in Denver is funded partly by a sales tax (RTD is a "special district" under state law, so it has a fraction of the sales tax in the 8 county region it covers) and partly by ticket/ride sales. Ridership is way way up, and sales tax is way way down, and diesel is breathtakingly way way up, so RTD is getting squeezed pretty bad.
When you look at why the ceo said the railcar market stinks, you find amazingly: efficiency.
"You want an honest answer to that question? The environment stinks. The pricing environment stinks. The demand stinks. Theres a lot of surplus cars. Its just not a very pleasant time to manufacturing new cars. It comes and goes. We think its a great place to be. We have low cost facilities. Were making some real progress there. But the customers have a lot of leverage because there arent that many deals out there and theres a lot of surplus cars lying around because of the improvements in velocity."
First?!?
Second, third, or so?...
Honesty is always refreshing.
jo6pac
Big prize for whomever can post the good news that has boosted the market above last Wednesday's close, BEFORE the bad jobs data, very bad service sector news, and IMB collapse, and of course, the terrible housing news from yesterday and today.
I said GOOD news.
Is KC Southern RR still working on the Super NAFTA highway into Gardner Kansas? A 10 lane highway w/3 track center from Mexico to by-pass the west coast ports and those nasty unions?
Trenches are still holding strong at 1250. Quite the battle, isn't it?
This is very bad news indeed. Given high oil prices, we will need to be moving more freight by rail rather than by road. If the RR's are not buying new rolling stock, seems like that "plan" will be far behind schedule. Clear evidence that even well positioned companies are pulling back on cap ex.
That could just about describe the whole US. It stinks like a rotting corpse.
Coal and grain account for the largest rail car useage. Are we moving less of those now?
Nice headline, CR. Transport costs are hammering everyone, and there's no foresight in sight.
Faber's growling about China, which has suffered as much as anyone from increasing transport costs. Tiny URL - create a shorter link
Gee I wonder what it would look like if all those commodities weren't moved by rail.....
Wait until the food stuffs crater that index this coming winter....
Ciao
MS
Knowing nothing except that oil is sky high right now I'd think that Railroads would be doing well now...
Does this mean that even with a shift from trucks to train the contraction of the economy is still hitting them hard?
..........
Anybody know what Bentonville, AR is ordering for this Xmas?
Or kinda what Dirk van Dijk said
the good news is: the psyops is working.
OT: Good news (I think) from the economic downturn...
Fewer couples are getting divorced this year in South Florida. Tough economic times and falling home prices may be at the root of the trend.
IndyMac was cut to CC from B- by Fitch (not quite default status... yet). (Reuters)
ades,
I think that that's exactly what it means.
Does this mean that even though the RRs' lower fuel costs should make this a time of opportunity for them, they can't get the financing they need to grow their business?
@Fewer couples are getting divorced this year in South Florida. Tough economic times and falling home prices may be at the root of the trend.
Now that's a claim Tanta could have some fun with.
OT:
Page not found
But very apropos....
George W. Bush Sewage plant.....
Only in SF
Ciao
MS
"Big prize for whomever can post the good news that has boosted the market above last Wednesday's close, BEFORE the bad jobs data, very bad service sector news, and IMB collapse, and of course, the terrible housing news from yesterday and today.
I said GOOD news.
Anonymous | 07.08.08 - 12:34 pm | # "
Oil down, dollar up.
Now give me my prize.
By the way pharma and biotech are up today like I haven't seen in a long time..
The market may stink at the moment, but I certainly see a lot of BNSF unit trains and boxcar trains and tanker trains rolling through here (Minneapolis) with nothing but shiny new cars. They must have bought a lot during the past few years.
It makes "eminent sense" to raise interest rates as risks to the U.S. economy recede amid unacceptably high inflation, a top Federal Reserve policy-maker said on Tuesday.
"Just as easing policy aggressively in response to emerging downside risks made sense, withdrawing some of that stimulus as those risks diminish makes eminent sense as well," Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said in prepared remarks.
Fed's Lacker: raise rates as growth risks fade
| Reuters
He's right but it ain't gonna happen.
The FED has announced that it will now exchange scratch off tickets for Treasuries.
Fewer couples are getting divorced this year in South Florida. Tough economic times and falling home prices may be at the root of the trend.
See, I told you a depression would make honest decent people out of us.
General Motors Corp. (GM), fighting to end a prolonged sales slump, will keep deals coming in July as its tries to clear out slow-selling pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.
The auto maker will offer six years of free financing on most full-size trucks, an extension of a sale initially slated to end June 30. Customers can get the discount only if they trade in a vehicle made no earlier than 1999. The previous offer applied to most GM cars and trucks.
i'll take an i/o neg am on a new Z06
Flooding has cut into prospects for grain output this year. That should reduce or restrain bulk freight rates, but is probably too short-term to account for a drop in orders for rolling stock.
I thought there was a huge boom going on in railroads right now? Why aren't they buying? That can't be a bullish signal...
So I was thinking late last night. Is it possible that ultrashort funds like SKF could actually serve to prop up the financial sector? My reasoning:
SKF provides investors a means to short financials without directly shorting/buying Puts. If these same investors made these same purchases directly it would have a direct impact pushing prices of financial shares downwards. However by purchasing SKF they are not moving the needle of those shares directly. Instead the relationship is indirect and the Proshares ETF is only responsible for providing a return 2X the real (smaller) change in financial shares.
In theory, if Proshares immediately purchased those levered short positions there would be an immediate downward pressure on stocks. But if there is a delay in their purchasing process, or if the fund chooses to 'sit' on the difference between how far SKF should theoretically rise (if that money was immediately put to work shorting) vs. how much it actually rises (based on prevailing financial prices, without that short money being immediately put to work)....then SKF would actually be preventing financial shares from falling farther. Without more knowledge of the inner workings of the ETF its impossible to say if this is happening, but I tend to be a bit skeptical of all things financial these days.
In any case, such a possibility is interesting to think about.
Like this comment?
Bloom TV is showing Dimon spewing nonsense at FDIC conference.
Real B.S. there.
Cheers,
Tough economic times and falling home prices may be at the root of the trend
let's see, i think lawyer bills come after mortgage, car, kids, food, ute's, and season tkts to club erotica.
If the rail raods can move more fright with less cars due to correct planning - what is so wrong in them not needing new cars ?
oil prices will sure cause deamnd to move to rail-roads as they are better than trucks and if they can do it more efficiant I might go longs on railroads in 2-3 years...
I wonder how Bombardier and Colorado Railcar are doing.
Greenbriar is just one company.
Didn't Mr. Buffet invest in railroads? Maybe he did not realize how big the downturn would be in consumer demand.
dimon can't even bs properly.
yal, i think it has something to do with people want to eat, Everyday!
JIT
trains just can't get the fresh stuff to your neighborhood fast enough, for the way we like to eat.
J.Goodwin said: "I wonder how Bombardier and Colorado Railcar are doing.
Greenbriar is just one company."
I had similar thoughts. I don't know anything about that market, who the players are, or their respective shares of market - but it occurred to me that Greenbrier might just be losing its market share.
Does anyone know if Greenbrier's competitors are experiencing similar sales slumps?
Behindthecurve,
You're too dumb to figure anything out, aren't you?
Why is the dollar up, and why is oil down?
Answering with an effect is not really anwering. What's the cause?
THE CAUSE!
Credit rating agencies did not properly manage their conflicts of interests when assigning ratings to structured products such as mortgage-backed securities, a report by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday.
SEC finds serious shortcomings in credit raters
| Reuters
That's a nice way of calling them what they are a bunch of whores.
And psyops isn't really the answer either. They try, and they try. But it all comes back to manipulation. All I heard over the long weekend was how bad everything is.
Psyops ain't working too well.
And for those who say bailout in the works. Uh, the Fed doesn't have enough left to bail much out.
Warning: this may be a rhetorical question.
Anonymous,
You're just too cheap to give me my prize, you liar.
Always the same reason when something is down-more sellers than buyers.
Now give me prize or you'll hera from my attorney.
Bombardier has a very good Q1 in the railcar division.
"Bombardier Transportation revenues rose to $2.4 billion, an increase of $702 million over the same period last fiscal year."
Also $2.4 billion in new orders.
Anonymous @12:34 pm
Market's up because:
1) Oil and ag prices slumped, encouraging consumer-related stocks.
2) Bernanke promised another sugar titty, raising hopes for the financial sector. Hope floats, you know.
3) Things could be worse, Negative Nancy!
maybe the addicted pollyannas just can't walk away from the madness. maybe failure is just not an option for their egos.
European Union finance ministers agreed to introduce legislation to oversee credit rating agencies after the U.S. subprime crisis highlighted the industry's failures.
UPDATE 2-EU ministers seek tougher rating agency oversight
| Reuters
The US won't do it so we will.
One reason railroads are reluctant to invest is hedge funds and other financial preditors that are circling CSX and others. These raiders want RRs to reduce cap ex and delay replacement, while increasing debt and buying back stock.
I work for a shortline rr owned by the BNSF and UP, we have never been busier.
The market for new cars might stink, but rr business itself is booming.
Well, Colorado Railcar and Bombardier are both in the passenger rail business (Bombardier is well diversified of course, mainly in aircraft).
Bombardier's year ends on January 31st, so their second quarter results won't be out for about a month, but as of last quarter, their rail revenues were up between 35 and 40 percent.
Colorado Railcar is privately held, so there's no transparency there.
Alstom is in passenger rail, and their forecasts are up 25% on orders.
American Railcar does shipping cars of various sorts (hoppers etc), and their sales were flat year over year for the quarter ended March 31.
Trinity Industries (freight) sales were up in the 5-10% year over year for the quarter ended March 31.
Freightcar America's first quarter was dismal, they seem to have had some significant labor problems, and they stated that while demand for freight cars is up, and they have a significant backlog of orders (looks like about two quarters worth of their normal production, and a couple years of their first quarter 08 production), demand for coal cars was down.
National Steel Car seems to be privately held.
Piggy backs are down - okay, the traffic from Asian ports to Cali is lower. Bulk cars are doing fine - tankers, grain and coal cars. I live near a main rail line & it is humping let me tell you... coal going east to the power plants & grain (what little that was carried over) going south to the ports (to get around the flooding).
Fewer piggy backs is pretty much a positive story... sort of like complaining that hypodermic needle production is lower because there are fewer heroin junkies. Not necessarily a bad thing.
outsidethecurve, please don't bring Dershowitz into this.
Alright. I tricked you, the prize is actually a rude comment from Anonymous.
Betcha can't guess who won, you sad bozos.
(Remember the warning: may be rhetorical.)
I export grain and seeds, getting railcars is now very difficult, demand for grain for export is still very high. Personally i think it will slow down a little into Asia once the Asians face their inflation problems, but in the secondary railcar option market(each RR has negotiable option rights on railcars that trade freely) bids on rights to one car has gone from $100 to 225 for the month of August, last year they got as high as
$1100 per car. sounds to me like there is no excess or grain railcars.
Passenger rail looks to be a decent bet in times of high energy, at least for commute and inter-city runs.
The "Capitol" (San Jose to Sacramento) would add more trains if 1) it could get more cars (they'll be here in a couple of years) and 2) they could fit more runs in and around the higher-priority freight traffic. If less freight is coming into the West Coast, #2 might take care of itself.
I wouldn't bet against Bombadier.
Josh, dryfly, leftymn your comments are more insightful and worthy of note than those of some CEO using "the economy' as an excuse for the fact that the competition is kicking his butt. I see the same on the rail lines around here (Upstate NY).
Anonymous-Either fork over the prize or not only will you hear from my attorney, you will get to meet my cousins Rocko and Sluggo.
My company is looking into using more rail to both receive ingredients and ship product. Unfortunately, most of our suppliers and customers are not set up to use rail and our product is somewhat perishable. Even if we put spur lines into our distribution centers, our customers could not use them. So for now anyway, we are just passing on increased fuel costs to our customers who will no doubt pass it on to you.
Most railroads are run by finance not operating people so equipment replacement is a low priority.
George W. Bush Sewage plant.....
Only in SF
Ciao
MS
Nice way to besmerch the good name of sewage.
I have no expertise in railroads, but to me the comments by Josh/dryfly/leftmn/other jim/steelhead seem to indicate one or both of two things. Either the railroads believe this surge in rail shipping is a temporary blip due to oil prices or they are expecting business climate to get much worse (in part, probably due to the same oil prices). Either way they are probably thinking that rail shipping is likely to trend down in the near future. As such, they are probably making due with what's on hand, watching cashflow, and preserving operating capital until things sort out (i.e., capital expenditures/increasing cash burn are the last thing on their minds regardless of the current demand).
MOM you watching? Any insights on freight/shipping trends?
There was a report a couple of weeks back that unexpectedly large numbers of unused railcars were being stored at yards in Montana. I don't remember the mix of car type being specified, but the report speculated that decreased import traffic was responsible.
TRN is an odd mix of businesses. They just sold a cement business in Texas. Their railcare business was just OK. They have a wind turbine components business that's going great guns, though.
However by purchasing SKF they are not moving the needle of those shares directly. Instead the relationship is indirect and the Proshares ETF is only responsible for providing a return 2X the real (smaller) change in financial shares.
Eh, assuming that SKF and kin are Equity Swaps, exchanging LIBOR for the inverse (or double) return on the GS financial index (I think it was), then whoever wrote that swap will be attempting to hedge their exposure by buying puts or selling short or the like. That will still put pressure on the stock price.
A recent news reports indicates that Russia has a shortage of rail cars for carrying coal. Can't the US export rail cars and sell them for devalued dollars, or have we become too inefficient even to sell primitive products to Russia?
Most railroads are run by finance not operating people so equipment replacement is a low priority.
From what I know of the rail business, this is probably half the explanation.
The drop in auto sales is going to lessen the demand for those rail cars, the midwest floods will probably means another 1 or 2 % drop in grain shipments. Bottom line is fewer goods are being purchased, so fewer goods are being transported. That's going to add life to existing rail cars (reduced wear) so that's probably the other half of the explanation.
other jim writes:
My company is looking into using more rail to both receive ingredients and ship product. Unfortunately, most of our suppliers and customers are not set up to use rail and our product is somewhat perishable.
The answer you might be looking for is:
Domestic Intermodal.
I work in the Truck end of intermodal.
Trucks might be better for up to 700 mi,if you product is perishable.
Transloading, or crossing between railroads cost time & money,better to truck to a rail-head first.
oh,btw: $6 per Gallon of diesel I'm guessing is the break point for trucking.
Can't the US export rail cars and sell them for devalued dollars,
They would have to be modified to run on the Russian system. Add shipping costs and the numbers don't look good.
Interesting that the railroad market stinks. However, it appears that the competitors are doing well and also CAT purchased MGE - a Brazilian train company for its rail services division.Link is below.
Cat buys Brazilian train company - Peoria, IL - pjstar.com
Not here in Denver. The coal "unit" trains are still running, and I haven't noticed any change in the amount of trains. They are 125 cars of coal, and 5 or 6 locomotives, and at about 80 tons of coal per car, that's about 10 kilotons of coal per train. And they roll every 90 minutes day and night down the BNSF tracks. Yep, I get bored enough on the light rail commute that I count cars, and I don't read because that's how I miss my stop.
You know those rail cars that carry cars from the auto plants? There are a lot of them just parked on sidings. I guess sales of cars and trucks are down so much that it isn't worth hauling all the empty cars back to the auto assembly plants, nor the ports of entry because, well, they don't have room on their sidings for the empty rail cars either. Since auto transport rail cars are very specialized rolling stock, there really isn't any other use that one can put them to, other than making trains longer than they need to be.
Public transport here in Denver is funded partly by a sales tax (RTD is a "special district" under state law, so it has a fraction of the sales tax in the 8 county region it covers) and partly by ticket/ride sales. Ridership is way way up, and sales tax is way way down, and diesel is breathtakingly way way up, so RTD is getting squeezed pretty bad.
Many of the remarks here are dumb.
Here's the transcript: The Greenbrier Companies F3Q08 (Qtr End 5/31/08) Earnings Call Transcript -- Seeking Alpha
When you look at why the ceo said the railcar market stinks, you find amazingly: efficiency.
"You want an honest answer to that question? The environment stinks. The pricing environment stinks. The demand stinks. Theres a lot of surplus cars. Its just not a very pleasant time to manufacturing new cars. It comes and goes. We think its a great place to be. We have low cost facilities. Were making some real progress there. But the customers have a lot of leverage because there arent that many deals out there and theres a lot of surplus cars lying around because of the improvements in velocity."