President Trump has accepted the recommendations from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that steel and aluminum tariffs be implemented to prevent the dumping of foreign products at a discount. These cheaply sold products undercut the pricing of domestic (and other legitimately imported) steel and aluminum products.
Financial Edge, December 2017: Here at the Financial Edge, we always try to stay one step ahead of the news. Last month’s column on locomotive leasing means that an article discussing GE’s sale of its locomotive group will come at another time. Never fear! Interesting issues in rail will always abound.
Financial Edge, November 2017: Last month’s Railroad Financial Desk Book identified the influx of new investment capital as a cause for concern for railcar investors. Not discussed was that as capital files into railcars due to their longevity and utility, few, if any, dollars moving into the rail economy are used for investing in locomotives.
Financial Edge, August 2017 Railway Age: Industry watchers spend a fair bit of time trying to take economic data and translate it into future carloads and railcar deliveries. Recent economic data continues to confound watchers who, several years into an economic downturn (railcar-wise), struggle to reconcile growth in the broad economy with the weakness in railcar and carload data.
At Railway Age’s 2017 Rail Insights conference, attendees were treated to updates on a variety of current industry topics, such as the current status of Amtrak’s replacement of the Acela Express train, and a “what’s next” panel on the state of growth in North American rail freight (intermodal or bust?).
Recently, a rumor circulated in the railcar lease market that a Class I railroad had made an overture to a group of its operating lessors requesting that these lessors submit offers on cars currently on lease to the railroad.
Following in the spirit of its predecessors, the 31st annual Rail Equipment Finance Conference was a huge success and an incredible opportunity to get a complete understanding of today’s rail equipment market and where the market may be headed into 2017. Here is a summary of what happened at REF 2017 and what the experts had to say about equipment and the U.S. and global rail economy.
When the Financial Edge last addressed the topic of Hunter Harrison, it was during the failed takeover of Norfolk Southern (NS) by Canadian Pacific (CP). Pursuit of NS was not Harrison’s first transcontinental endeavor.
Among the daredevil set, the cadre of YouTube videos of drivers that attempt to stress the limitations of Tesla’s driver assist (or self-driving) mode (searching “Tesla Autopilot” yields a search result of almost 250,000 videos) is poor man’s fodder.
At the Railway Age “Energy by Rail” (EBR) conference, attendees were given a “What’s next?” point of view on the future of the transportation of coal, crude, LNG and other midstream products by rail, spearheaded by Matt Rose.
