Its time for railfans to put there money were the mouth is and Fund a Railroad IPO and run a RR!

[Anonymous]

What theres got to be at least 100,000 hard core railfans out there. avarage age 50 something...Plenty of empty nesters with disposable retirement income in there 401ks. If we get every one to anti up 2,000.00 we could get 200 million to start a railroad and levarge some junk bonds.( Heck as a Hobo here I think i Could collect at least 200.00 in cans to put my money in.)[:)] Then we take the 200 million to levarage junk bonds and buy or build our own. With our own railroad we could have open boxcars for all the hobos ..have steam trains pull Stack trains...Have interurbans feed our Passenger trains which are pulled by hydrogen Electric Locomotives...Restart railway express Agency...Owe yeah if you buy stock in the railroad here you have to work at the RR at least 10 hours per week.....[;)][;)]

[Randy Stahl]

So... Why don't you buy a ticket to ride trains ? LOL
Randy

[JoeKoh]

trainfinder
If you can raise 200 bucks in cans why not ride in a coach instead of a boxcar?
stay safe
Joe

[Anonymous]

OUCH!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JoeKoh

trainfinder
If you can raise 200 bucks in cans why not ride in a coach instead of a boxcar?
stay safe
Joe

Ha! Ha! LOL! Holy cow thats good!

[pat390]

oh that was a burn

[Anonymous]

Hmmmm. A Hobo with ambition....

Officer, arrest that man...

LC

[MP57313]

That was a good bottle of wine you had. Or was it something stronger?

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainfinder22

With our own railroad we could have open boxcars for all the hobos

We could call it the "Please Sue Me Railroad".

[ajmiller]

You could install wireless networks in each box car. That way all the hobos could log on to this forum and complain how they don't have enough clean straw to sleep on like you see in the movies.

[Rick Gates]

Bipolar disorder? Manic state maybe. A Seritonin Specific Reuptake Inhibitor may remedy these fanatical symptoms. [2c]

[Overmod]

I think you mean a Specific Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor ... SSRIs are more intended for depression, not mania. Lithium is the thing that inhibits the cascade in mania... Give the guy a break, at least he's not claiming secret membership in the organizations putting the shackles in the straw-filled broadband boxcars, or claiming he has 35,000 hours running secret Pentagon nuclear trains!

[adrianspeeder]

Cool, i also want a lollypop.

Adrianspeeder

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Rick Gates

Bipolar disorder? Manic state maybe. A Seritonin Specific Reuptake Inhibitor may remedy these fanatical symptoms. [2c]

Yes, but can he collect enough aluninum cans to pay for the Rx he so desperately needs?

[Anonymous]

Why would we want to by a railroad? They are run well enough [though they aren't perfect]. This's a crazy idea.

[locomutt]

Of Course It's A Crazy Idea! Look Who Started The Thread! [:D][2c]

[Anonymous]

Hey I really mean it instead of sitting around here !@#@^* about how the railroads wont do this or wont do that or how good it was in the Old Days......We could pool our money together and buy enough stock in the the Class ones to really make a diffrence. As for myself I own 1 share of CP(D&H fan) and one share of CSX(Nice railroad thats been good to me and my family over the years. We could start by forming a Trains magazine Investment Club that invests in Railroads and railroad related industrys. In the American System the public can buy shares of stock and have a say through there directors in how railroads are run. We CAN make fanatasy a reality.
Imagine a railroad that is run by railfans and people who work for the railroad. We CAN take back the railroads from the Investment bankers and the foriegn intrests who control them now.
Lets get a seriose discusion going here. There has to be a few Yuppie Hobos out there from Highland Park IL who love trains[:)]

[Overmod]

You know, it may sound funny, but (ignoring the source for the moment) there's some fundamental sense in this idea. Employee ownership has seemingly worked in other industries, including the airline industry, and to my knowledge 'enthusiast' management (for example Bruce Sterzing at D&H) can work as effectively as pure efficiency people -- I'm tempted to say the Perlmans do better than the Saunderses and Menks and Biagginis, at least in the long run, and the pre-meddling experience of the van Sweringen railroad experience (and perhaps Tim Mellon) are rather notable imho.

There would certainly be some sense, in some cases, in acquiring sufficient blocks of stock to achieve influence with management (although there are problems with trying to do this through open-market small purchases). The problem is this: if you've spent any time at stockholder meetings, you're probably aware of the self-appointed 'gadflies' with their token one share of stock to get in, who rise up and harangue management about what they should and shouldn't do -- probably causing far more harm to their cause than good. I remember this happening with labor unions and the J.P. Stevens company; I was able to persuade operations management to consider some of the more appropriate and desirable points of union 'reforms' (since I knew a couple of the senior people personally) when all the haranguing and demonstrations in the world wouldn't have done so -- and, by direct comment from the people in authority at the company, DID not do so.

But what trainfinder22 actually SAID was to finance the rail company directly, perhaps a la Phil Anschutz, and then run it in the sort of way that Herb Kelleher did with Southwest. Might be fun to figure out where, and out of what assets, such an entity could be put together, and what approach to underwriters, IBs, etc. would need to be made.

Just don't even breathe a hint of the words "Trains Magazine Resident Hobo" to anyone when even preliminarily discussing the idea...

[Anonymous]

Shareholder meetings can be instresting as in Ben & Jerrys with plant tours and free Ice Cream or Echo Bay Goldmines with Coin Collecters and Gold Enthusists putting in there 2 cents. But the last one I attended was very dry and in order to make comment you had to give notice in writting and they had to be approved by the board.Another intresting anomaly is that the Board of Directors is composed of Blue Bloods who individaly dont own enough shares to elect themselves but have served on enough Non-Profit Boards to get invited to sit on the board. We need to do more to ensure that Coperations become more democratric not less so. There should be two boards of directors one with One man One Vote and the other of one share one vote.

[vsmith]

200M wouldnt buy much....maybe a tourist line? hey thats an idea!

Once you park you have to change into raggy smelly cloths, then enter a Hobo Jungle, pay your dues to the FTRA, then to catch the train, which consists of only open boxcars, they have to dodge RR Bulls and sneak on board or run and climb onboard once the trip stsrts.

We only serve canned food like tuna or they can dumpster dive for day old delicasies, and at the end abunch FTRA gangmembers roam the train and beat the [censored] out of some of them and tell the rest to "stay off our trains..."

Whaada ya think, if we ran it up the flagpole, would anyone salute?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainfinder22

What theres got to be at least 100,000 hard core railfans out there. avarage age 50 something...Plenty of empty nesters with disposable retirement income in there 401ks. If we get every one to anti up 2,000.00 we could get 200 million to start a railroad and levarge some junk bonds.( Heck as a Hobo here I think i Could collect at least 200.00 in cans to put my money in.)[:)] Then we take the 200 million to levarage junk bonds and buy or build our own. With our own railroad we could have open boxcars for all the hobos ..have steam trains pull Stack trains...Have interurbans feed our Passenger trains which are pulled by hydrogen Electric Locomotives...Restart railway express Agency...Owe yeah if you buy stock in the railroad here you have to work at the RR at least 10 hours per week.....[;)][;)]

1. You are overestimating the number of railfans who have or are willing to invest $2,000. I'd put the number at 1,000 on a good day nationwide. That would raise about $2 Million. It would be enough to start a decent little short line if you are careful what you buy.

2. You'd need insurance so open boxcars and hobos are out.

3. Steam trains cost WAY too much to maintain, sorry.

4. Same for interurbans. No passenger trains needed, but perhaps we could scrape up an RDC for an occasional inspection trip.

5. Can't afford expensive research on Hydrogen. We'll stick with some decent diesel electrics.

6. No REA, there are many reasons it went under, we can't afford to compete with "Brown" (UPS).

7. Employees will be drawn from those who apply and need not be shareholders, but we could have an ESOP if desired.

8. If you can raise the money, I can find a railroad and I'll even run it for you for the right price. I have $2,000 I can spend on it. Who else is ready???

LC

[Overmod]

Count me in -- If you're in, LC, I think I can rely on it being set up right...

[Anonymous]

IF I can be the engineer . . . I'm in. [:p] [;)] [:p]

But you have to meet my financial requirements to work for you.

I have a nice sum in my 401K, not in the millions mind you but double figures. [8D] But you know what they say about SS. It may not be there for us when we are there for it. [:(] And Greenspan already wants to cut it back even more. [:(!] [:(!] [:(!]

<JIm thinks it is time for HIM to retire, he has WAY too much power for one man. I'm not a Greenspan fan by any means.>

[Anonymous]

who would be the CEO, the HOBO?????

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dragonslayer87

who would be the CEO, the HOBO?????

Nah, he can be the Vice Chairman (or is that the Chairman of Vice?)

You can make me any title you want, as long as I can run the thing without unreasonable interference...

Please note, I said "unreasonable interference". I'm open to all good management suggestions and even a little help now and again...

LC

[edblysard]

Lets see,
For 200 million, lets suppose you buy say, 25 new MK1500Ds...at 1 million each, that leaves you 175 million,,,so at a average of 1 million per mile, you can buy 175 miles of railroad, forgeting the salries of employees, insurance, maintainance of buildings, administration cost, (did I mention insurance?) cost of fule, sand, oil, (55 gallon drums Texaco lube aint cheap) and on and on...
You gotta raise a lot more that 200 million, althought that might get you a vote or two on UP"s board of directors, maybe...

Ed

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

Lets see,
For 200 million, lets suppose you buy say, 25 new MK1500Ds...at 1 million each, that leaves you 175 million,,,so at a average of 1 million per mile, you can buy 175 miles of railroad, forgeting the salries of employees, insurance, maintainance of buildings, administration cost, (did I mention insurance?) cost of fule, sand, oil, (55 gallon drums Texaco lube aint cheap) and on and on...
You gotta raise a lot more that 200 million, althought that might get you a vote or two on UP"s board of directors, maybe...

Ed

$200M would give you a decent shot at the KCS. $15.00/share on friday. So if you put in $150M of your stake into KCS that's be 10Million shares or just under 1/6th of the 62,674,000 shares outstanding. I'm sure you'd get some directors and perhaps even control, with ca***o spare...

LC

[Anonymous]

Oh...Count me in. The first stockholders meeting will be a live version of the Forum. Now that's entertainment.
I thought Bipolar disorder was something the west end of the Milwaukee Road suffered from.
I'm doing the posters.
Mitch

[Anonymous]

An then watch KCS plumit?

Heres what i think to the idea: I say screw maintenance, let's pull the old "CP M&O" division tactic: Forget about maintenance all together! let the ties Rot, and the rails screw up, which will force 10 MPH on most miles of the track- 175 Miles of boring dithering track? Let's settle for 10 MP of NS railroad- the busiest part- and completely screw them over- we'll forget about maintenance! open box cars our are moto- Let's leve evrything open? whats the max Speed our locomotive can do? heck- on va voir!

Sarcasim aside- We should really pool a whole wach of money and invest in Some serious Stockage: NO really! CP rail is at 33 bucks/22 American, CN is at 80 american\ 110 canadain... hmm Kinda of a kick in the bum-bum with the amount of money we have, let's Buy CP-

Then when we own CP we can start producing D&H toilet paper, Who wouldn't want to use that?

See if we were to buy Cn and place every single RR they've taken over, tnat would be coastly, and what would our modo be, collect all ten thousand, eight hundred and fifty rolls? uhhh...no.

We can make CP rail Ken.. What girl doesn't want a CP rail Ken?

THEN... We could make CP rail household acsessories.. And put on them "BUY HONEST MEN'S HOUSEHOLD ITEMS, NOT SOME JAILED WOMAN" hint, hint...

Bars of soap- Eau de CP- Available in Track scent, Station scent, limited edition Engineers sweat scent.. limited to 10 thou- no one thou.

Then we can start making automobiles- think about it- we'll but out GM.. the CP rail hummer, now with parts from 90 MAC's.. Because we put our trains in our hearts..

Who on this green earth wouldn't buy that..

Common we could turn the D&H eaters *burp* into somehting half decent, who is with me????

[edblysard]

Ok, I bite...
I take out a equity loan on the old house...sell the kids, and rent the Magnum out for joy rides, but I get to be the trainmaster....
So, what color other than battleship gray for the New, Employee Owned KCS?

And who get to run TexMex?

Mudchicken can be the chief engineer/MOW foreman...Mookie is administration/vice prez in charge of public relations, Kevin is the...well, what is Kevin.....ah ha!
Motive power desk!
LC is the super...and CSXengineer is roadforeman of engines...
Keno is personel, and tree, (Larry) our safety officer...
Hemphill can be chief dispatcher, first trick...(no more midnights....not bad Mark!)

lots of jobs up for bids...

So, whos in?

Ed
Ed