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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken An awful lot of the shortlines are privately held interests. Many times the ROI is small compared to the high rollers, but they tend to be steady performers. Even the big boys do not have guady ROI's and struggle to make more than a bank used to be able to on your $$$$. This type of thing with shortlines is a long term investment, they are trying to build equity on a shoestring budget. The Wall Street trash are not likely to be making noise over shortlines instead of the fast buck artists that they prefer. I have a small investment in two shortlines out of principle more than a desire to get suddenly rich. When the numbers get to looking too good, my suspicion is that track maintainance was sacrificed in the name of the bottom line (i.e. somebody is taking the money and running before the trains fall off the rail and land in the dirt. So much for the future of that outfit!)......Moral: The good outfits religiously take a designated portion of the profit and plow it back into the physical plant. The bad ones fail in a short period of time while trying to be a darling on Wall Street by propping up their returns... Mudchicken [/quote] MC- Excellent review on all points. As someone who has been involved in smaller short lines at all levels and Class 1s as an operating guy (Engineer/Conductor) I have to agree. What I am thinking about are the publicly traded companies primarily. The short lines/holding companies I am aware of that are publicly traded are: Genesee & Wyoming Industries (NYSE: GWR) RailAmerica (NYSE: RRA) Pioneer Railcorp (Nasdaq OTC: PRRR) Of the group I like G&W the best. In my opinion they are the best managed. LC
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