I think that Freight rates have to go up for the Railroads to help with the stupid law suits that seem to come out 2 to 3 times a day in this country. Railroad crossings for one thing. And since this new Horn ban law IS NOT going to help things at all. I know the Railroads arn’t perfect,No one is. But the law suit happy nation we live in is getting out of hand. I mean why and the HELL does the public hate the Railroads so much that they have to do something stupid just to sue the RR. I know that the RR’s have alot of money,but you have to have alot of money to keep a system running. To me I think that the public needs to grow up. Leave the RR’s the hell alone. There needs to be a law in this country stateing that once this new law on train horns are banned you “CAN NOT” sue the Railroad. Once you hit a train or if the train hits you well, you are on your own. The public want’s this no horn blowing law so bad that they will go to stupid messures just to get it in affect. The law suits need to stop now.
I for one thing think that if this don’t,The nations Railroads are gona seriously be in trouble. Forking out MILLIONS out of the Railroads is not the answer. This country needs the Railroad to transport our goods. I think that some where along the line that if these law suits continue the RR’s are gona have no choice but to raise rates to make up for the stupid law suits that the public is causing in this country. WE ARE RESPONCEABLE FOR OUR ACTIONS! Is the public willing to listen? What do you think on this matter? Do you think that the Railroad should raise rates just to make up for the law suits? Or go Bankrupt form the law suits? There is a choice!
Allan.
Not yet. I think the railroads should wait and see what will happen. The trucking industry is failing and the overall freight traffic is increasing swiftly and surely. The governement will wise up and figure out a law for starters and secondly, the railroad will adapt and seize the opportunities for the failures of their transportation competitors and will prevail. If they survived the depression and stock market crashes, they will survive this without having to increase freight rates.
Not if Wall Street keeps on them about dividends and stock splits. After reading the Aug Trains and CPR wanting to build out their infastructure and Wall Street saying other wise.
CP doesn’t really do what the Wall Street wants but their business is on a steady incline and the stocks at least on the TSX are pretty good.
Is this really a problem yet?
m
I don’t think the public hates railroads more or less than any other large corporation. The population of the US is definitely lawsuit-happy, but I don’t see anything changing that soon. Unless you can convince folks that lawsuits are somehow un-American … a real stretch … we’ll just have to deal with it.
Didn’t G.W Bush promise reforms to federal litigation laws in his campaign?
Freight rates WILL go up if and when the railroads have the leverage to increase them.
If the leverage is not there, the shippers rertain the upper hand.
It is that simple.
ed
NEWSFLASH!!
Rail freight rates are already increasing rapidly, note that this doesn’t even include fuel surcharges which are also increasing rapidly as they are tied to the price of oil.
Some rates have already increased 30%+ since last year and fuel surcharges are now over 12% as well.
Boosting freight rates to cover litigation risk is not generally done as litigation and results is generally considered foreseeable and is covered by insurance. The cost of insurance is factored into the balance sheet and budgets as a cost and thus is used as one small justification for higher rates. Crew costs are a much larger cost, for example…
LC
You all have a very good point there.
Allan.
Have you checked the stock prices of the BNSF & UPRR lately? If not try it because the price of there stocks surely does not reflect bankruptcy is near. Do you have inside info of what you posted? If what you posted is true then everybody should be shorting BNSF & UPRR today as soon as the market opens. [:o)][:p][B)]
[quote]
Originally posted by BNSF railfan.
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[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by spbed
Have you checked the stock prices of the BNSF & UPRR lately? If not try it because the price of there stocks surely does not reflect bankruptcy is near. Do you have inside info of what you posted? If what you posted is true then everybody should be shorting BNSF & UPRR today as soon as the market opens. [:o)][:p][B)]
NO! But the RR’s forking out millions on law suits alone isn’t helping them any. They could be using that millions to go toward thier Railroad too keep it up and running.
Allan.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by BNSF railfan.
There alway problems, this should be why the BNSF and UP boards pay Rose and Young big bucks.
“Wall Street” is just a euphamism for “the owners.” Shouldn’t a company’s management do what the owners of the company want?
I think the big problem is the owners have too little control. The managment has too much control over the board and the board disseminates far too little information. (when have you seen anything other than “happy talk” in the board’s annual report to stockholders?)
The only leverage the owners have over the managment is to elect different board members. The owners are disaggegated and have no unifying voice and the board members have staggered terms. This makes it extremely difficult for the owners to have any control over managment.
A good example of this is the lack of fallout from any of the recent merger debacles. Did anybody on a RR board or Sr. Mgt. get replaced because of poor results?
Don-I agree with everything you say but…
Typically a Class I will find that 80% of its stock is owned by about 250 institutional investors. These folks no how to read an annual report and 10K!
I guess my point was that if left ot the “Stock Holders” whom many/all are in the market for a profit, nothing wrong there, just that when $$ over-ride a real need to grow a company it ends up hurting many along the way. I remember the movie called Other Peoples Money? that had Danny Deveto in it, sort of reminds me of how “Wall Street” runs, buy, make a profit and sell and close it down.
I thought CPR was spot on to make the re-investment in the physical plant to make long term gains, which
The actual range is 68% for NS to 82% for UP, but there are 100s of inst. holders, so getting “critical mass” for a change is difficult. The only one I’ve heard of making any waves is NY atty gen. Elliot Spitzer (sp?)
And, even in this post Enron - SOx environment, 10Ks are hardly bullet proof! That Health South clown just got off - he was CEO and he didn’t know what was going on - Really! If so, then why isn’t the Health South BOD somehow held reponsible for hiring such a stupid clown t