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[quote user="CMStPnP"] [quote user="Sam1"] How you drew the conclusion that I was alleging fraudulent stockholder reports is a mystery. Under the then existing SEC requirements, public companies were not required to report segment information. Many of them did not have the ability to do so. The customary reporting standards for public reporting when the railroads ran passenger trains was different from today's reporting requirements.   Segment reporting is governed by ASC 280. A quick scan of the SEC reporting requirements suggests that ASC 280 did not come into play until 1997.  Moreover, whether segment reporting is required depends on a revenue, income, and asset test.  Whether any railroad's passenger operations prior to May 1971 would have crossed the test threshold is unknown, although I suppose if one had a lot of time, he or she could research it. [/quote] It's very simple, many railroads did report a profit on Passenger Train operations in their Annual Reports despite your trying to confuse the issue with Accounting rule differences between then and now.     Really are we going to apply 1990 era Accounting standards to Railroad Operations in the 1960's and 1950's and even before and say that is a rational or logical argument?.   It's not rational to do that, IMO.      Had this argument before with another person.    Using the Accounting standards at the time railroads reported a profit on their passenger train operations, some of them well into the 1960's.     You can review their annual reports online many of them are on the Internet.       If your disputing the profits never happened because they did not apply 1990's era Accounting standards back then........thats an irrational argument at best.       Passenger Trains under private operation are quite different then Passenger Trains today.    One difference is they were used in the days of private control to move railroad crews, mail, LCL express freight, etc.     Good luck applying 1990 rules to that amalgamation.      It can't be done.   [/quote] This is what I said:  "The railroads were amongst the first corporations to implement sophisticated accounting and finance systems in the U.S.  I am reasonably sure that they had the ability to gather, process, and produce meaningful financial statements for each passenger train that they operated. I don't know how much of the information was made public, but they had it." Note that I did not say that they did not make the information public.  I said that I did not know! I did not say that they did not make money on passenger trains.  I said that I did not know.  Moreover, I did not say or imply that they should have used 1990s accounting and SEC reporting standards.  That would be absurd. How could they?  They were out of the passenger business long before the 1990s.  What I did say or meant to say is that the standards then were not as rigorous then as now. You should take the time to read my posts more carefully before make assertions that have no foundation.  Also, why don't you show us a sample of the railroads that made money on their overall passenger train operations with some supporting data that can be verified.  One or two roads with revenues, net operating profit, net income before taxes, plus any extraordinary items and discontinued operations for the passenger department would work quite nicely.
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