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The secret mega-merger THEY don't want you to know about.

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Posted by Firelock76 on Sunday, April 5, 2015 2:36 PM

Murphy Siding
 
Firelock76

Jeez, I never heard of a 7-Up bar.  What were they like?  What'd they taste like?  Lady Firestorm's drawing a blank on this one too, but she knows what a "Skybar" is.

 

 

 

 Seven-up bar was like 7 pieces of different chocolates out of a box of candy smooshed into 1 candy bar. Cool

 

 

Interesting concept!  But that sounds like another one that never made it to our neck of the woods.  Oh well, it's a BIG country, I suppose they couldn't be everywhere.

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Posted by kgbw49 on Saturday, April 4, 2015 11:27 PM

Total revenues will typically be larger than operating revenues because of miscellaneous other income such as interest earnings on cash balances, real estate rental revenue, gains on the sale of assets (such as a fully depreciated locomotive being sold for positive dollar amount), sale of scrap metal, etc.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Saturday, April 4, 2015 11:12 PM

Firelock76

Jeez, I never heard of a 7-Up bar.  What were they like?  What'd they taste like?  Lady Firestorm's drawing a blank on this one too, but she knows what a "Skybar" is.

 

 Seven-up bar was like 7 pieces of different chocolates out of a box of candy smooshed into 1 candy bar. Cool

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Saturday, April 4, 2015 9:55 PM

BroadwayLion
BNSF is privately held, there is no stock. Ergo: no listings. No need to issue reports. 

 BNSF still has about $526 million in "Funded Debt Unmatured" (likely various bonds and mortgages, some from way back) and another $72 million in Equipment Obligations (plus some other miscellaneous liabilities).*  So there are quite a few people who will be very interested in the financial operations and status of the enterprise, and they will most definitely want annual reports; failure to provide same would be an event of default.  Or, another - possibly better - source is:  

*2014 "Railroad Annual Report R-1" to the STB, page 6, lines 41 and 42 (page 11 of 144 of the "PDF" version linked below); see:

http://www.bnsf.com/about-bnsf/financial-information/surface-transportation-board-reports/pdf/14R1.pdf 

Same report shows Total Railway Operating Revenues as $23,035,998 Billion (page 16, Line 13, of the same report = page 31 of 144 of the "PDF" version linked above); no idea why it's slightly different from the figure in the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report. 

- Paul North.   

"This Fascinating Railroad Business" (title of 1943 book by Robert Selph Henry of the AAR)
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Posted by desertdog on Saturday, April 4, 2015 7:49 PM

zardoz

 

 
Firelock76

If the mysterious "They" are looking for something worthwhile to do I wish "They" would start making "Milk Shake" candy bars again!

I don't know why "They" stopped making them to begin with!

"Whatever happened to 'Milk Shake' bars?  I used to love those things, they were great!"

"I dunno, 'They' don't make 'em no more!"

 

 

 

Do you remember the Horlicks malted milk tablets (in both vanilla and chocolate)?  The were sooooooo tasty!!!!!!

 

 

Having lived and worked in Racine and Kenosha, WI, I well remember Horlicks. Strangely enough, the last time I saw any sign of them was in the Kingston, Jamaica airport about fifteen years ago. Supposedly, they were making the malt tablets right there in Jamaica.

Railroad content: the national railroad had stopped operating years before, but they still had manned crossings in places.

 

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Posted by ricktrains4824 on Saturday, April 4, 2015 7:25 PM

Gee, here I thought you were going to say KCS merged with someone, which is why their amount, though lowest, is listed in 2nd place..... Whistling

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Posted by Firelock76 on Saturday, April 4, 2015 6:36 PM

Jeez, I never heard of a 7-Up bar.  What were they like?  What'd they taste like?  Lady Firestorm's drawing a blank on this one too, but she knows what a "Skybar" is.

Hershey's lost the "Milk Shake" formula?  Suuure they did.  Excuses, excuses!

Never heard of a Horlick's Malted Tablet, I suppose they never made it to the part of New Jersey where I grew up.  But I can appreciate your liking for them Zardoz, "Milk Shakes" used to be heavy on the malt, like a "Milky Way" on steroids!

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Posted by zardoz on Saturday, April 4, 2015 6:35 PM

Firelock76

If the mysterious "They" are looking for something worthwhile to do I wish "They" would start making "Milk Shake" candy bars again!

I don't know why "They" stopped making them to begin with!

"Whatever happened to 'Milk Shake' bars?  I used to love those things, they were great!"

"I dunno, 'They' don't make 'em no more!"

 

Do you remember the Horlicks malted milk tablets (in both vanilla and chocolate)?  The were sooooooo tasty!!!!!!

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Posted by dakotafred on Saturday, April 4, 2015 5:08 PM

D.Carleton

If nothing else, look for most if not all the rest of the railroads to follow the path of BNSF into private ownership.

 
A provocative thought. What is your basis for it?
 
Among other objections I can think of is there aren't that many Warren Buffets out there with both his kind of money and longstanding appreciation of railroads. I find Wall Street gurus still kind of snotty about railroads, regarding them as an "old" industry whose dividends aren't that sexy.
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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Saturday, April 4, 2015 4:32 PM

Murphy Siding

     Am I the only one that liked 7-up bars?

 

yes.

Semper Vaporo

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Saturday, April 4, 2015 4:24 PM

Dakguy201

BNSF's revenue is hardly a secret.  Page 13 of Berkshire's annual report for 2014 indicates it was $23.239 billion. 

 

 That being said, Trains Magazine probably could have included it in the box meant to show comparisons*


*Even if they had to use an * to denote that BNSF is a publicly held comapany, and the figures in the box  are an estimated guess.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Saturday, April 4, 2015 4:22 PM

     Am I the only one that liked 7-up bars?

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Posted by BaltACD on Saturday, April 4, 2015 3:59 PM

edblysard

And while "they" are at it, "they" need to bring back the Zero bar too!

 

Loved it!  A number of years ago they even stocked it in the candy machine at work.  As I recall they were manufactured by the Hollywood Candy Co. from Centrailia, IL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Candy_Company

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by edblysard on Saturday, April 4, 2015 3:09 PM

And while "they" are at it, "they" need to bring back the Zero bar too!

23 17 46 11

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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Saturday, April 4, 2015 1:36 PM

Use your favorite internet search engine and read the amount of info out there about the Milk Shake candybar, including many recipes to make your own, but apparently Hershey's now owns the rights to it and can't find the original recipe.

Semper Vaporo

Pkgs.

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Posted by Firelock76 on Saturday, April 4, 2015 12:50 PM

If the mysterious "They" are looking for something worthwhile to do I wish "They" would start making "Milk Shake" candy bars again!

I don't know why "They" stopped making them to begin with!

"Whatever happened to 'Milk Shake' bars?  I used to love those things, they were great!"

"I dunno, 'They' don't make 'em no more!"

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Posted by D.Carleton on Saturday, April 4, 2015 11:08 AM

If nothing else, look for most if not all the rest of the railroads to follow the path of BNSF into private ownership.

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Posted by Dakguy201 on Saturday, April 4, 2015 11:02 AM

BNSF's revenue is hardly a secret.  Page 13 of Berkshire's annual report for 2014 indicates it was $23.239 billion. 

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Saturday, April 4, 2015 10:42 AM

BroadwayLion

BNSF is privately held, there is no stock. Ergo: no listings. No need to issue reports.

 

 

 The NFL teams are all privately held.  If a football magazine printed an article comparing the pertinent stats about the top 7 teams, do you think they'd omit the stats about one of last years' Super Bowl teams in an information box made to compare the stats?

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Posted by Wizlish on Saturday, April 4, 2015 7:48 AM

dakotafred
Now, now, Murphy, remember U.P.'s evenhandedness when it merged S.P., the new name honoring the first name of U.P., the last name of S.P.

Shades of "we'll name it 'Pull' for me and 'man for you".

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Posted by BroadwayLion on Saturday, April 4, 2015 7:01 AM

BNSF is privately held, there is no stock. Ergo: no listings. No need to issue reports.

 

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Posted by dakotafred on Saturday, April 4, 2015 6:50 AM

Murphy Siding

   I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say the paint scheme for the newly formed merger will be Armour Yellow, and the  railroad will be called Union Pacific.Mischief

 
Now, now, Murphy, remember U.P.'s evenhandedness when it merged S.P., the new name honoring the first name of U.P., the last name of S.P.
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Posted by K. P. Harrier on Friday, April 3, 2015 11:37 PM

Yellow likely would be the color!

 

But, it is not likely regulators would allow it.

 

Warren Buffet strangely operating out of Omaha makes one wonder, though.

 

The motive behind Mr. Buffet and company buying BNSF, in my opinion, was the great financial promise of one-man train crews.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Friday, April 3, 2015 11:12 PM

     Since it was an article about Class 1's don't you think some mention should have been made about BNSF's revenues, as it's also a Class 1?

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Posted by tomikawaTT on Friday, April 3, 2015 11:10 PM

For BNSF numbers check Berkshire Hathaway's annual report.  Or did you forget that Warren Buffet bought it.

Why the Trains piece didn't include it I don't know.  Maybe because it ISN'T a low-hanging fruit stand-alone statistic.

As for the revenue disparity between NS, CSX and UP, check route mileages...

Chuck

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Posted by kgbw49 on Friday, April 3, 2015 10:44 PM
BNSF is a wholly-owner subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and as such its corporate performance is rolled into Berkshire Hathaway's financials. But BNSF still must report to all applicable government agencies. For 2014, BNSF had revenues of $23.239 billion, net income of $3.869 billion, and an operating ratio of 69.2. The BNSF operating summary can be found at bnsf.com under the "About BNSF" tab, then "Financial Information" then "Performance Summary".
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The secret mega-merger THEY don't want you to know about.
Posted by Murphy Siding on Friday, April 3, 2015 10:25 PM

     The current issue (May 2015) of Trains Magazine has an article entitled Railroads turn in strong 2014 financials.  A box down in the corner compares Class 1 2014 financials.  In Billions of $ of operating revenue, the railroads are listed as: UP $24B, KCS $2.6B, CN $9.7B, CP $5.3B, CSX $12.7B, NS $11.6B.

     Two things stand out from this list. First, UP's operating revenues seemed to be about equal to CSX and NS combined!  Second, and more importantly, there is no BNSF listed! Surprise  Obviously, UP merged BNSF, and THEY- the powers that be- don't want us to know!  I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say the paint scheme for the newly formed merger will be Armour Yellow, and the  railroad will be called Union Pacific.Mischief

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