Those of you who know me well know that I was a brakeman on the Penn Central Railroad while in college. That was 45 years ago, but the recent crude-by-rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, has had me thinking back to my own near disaster involving tank cars in the summer of ’68.
Regular readers of this blog may remember that at the end of most of my writings on how the fracking industry is positively impacting our industry, I generally add a caveat regarding the future. I suggested that there would ultimately be one or more accidents involving crude-by-rail (CBR) or some of the NGLs (natural gas liquids) that fracking produces.
Progress Rail Services’ EMD subsidiary has targeted North America’s 3,300 existing EMD GP38-2 locomotives (originally built between 1972 and 1986) for repowering with EMD’s more modern 710 “ECO” line of diesel engines.
There are unanswered questions about regulatory changes and a shrinking operating lessor pool. As readers of this column already know, the rail industry has enjoyed more than 30 years of seemingly limitless financing of its equipment needs by banks, insurance companies, and operating lessors.
Welcome to this year’s edition of the Railroad Financial Desk Book. Each year we try our best to take a look back and a look forward to see if we can discern what the tea leaves have in store for the rail equipment and leasing industries.
I’m sitting here during the Dog Days of summer recuperating from major surgery as well as the experience of advising one of the potential purchasers of GE’s railcar leasing business, which was for sale up until recently.
In October 2010 Fifth Third Bank did what we wish every bank would do: It hired a rail finance veteran to head its Surface Transportation Division. Rob Hart is a veteran of the Illinois Central, where he was involved in equipment planning, capital budgets, and corporate finance, and was ultimately named Treasurer.
The view from the top
Before we move on to our CEO interviews, we thought it might be appropriate to reflect upon an event that has been reported in the financial press and that should be of interest to everyone reading this special issue: the potential sale of GE Railcar Services.
