Finance/Leasing

Cowen: Railcar Demand Recovery in 2021

In the two weeks following Cowen and Company’s mid-September Transportation and Sustainable Mobility Conference, analyst Matt Elkott, with input from colleagues Adam Kramer and Jason Seidl (Managing Director and Railway Age Wall Street Contributing Editor), noted that railcar inquiries “have ticked up. While translation into orders may not yet be commensurate with inquiries due to election and pandemic uncertainty, there appears to be an improvement in underlying demand” that should carry forward into a recovery in 2021.

Are Intermodal’s “Green Shoots” Signs of Recovery?

THE FINANCIAL EDGE, RAILWAY AGE SEPTEMBER 2020 ISSUE: The rail industry continues to twist as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. To say that the length of the pandemic either has or will exceed most people’s initial expectations would be an understatement. So as the market continues to scuffle along, “Financial Edge” tried to look for some “green shoots” to provide some sense that there will be a return to normalcy sometime in the future.

Midwest & Bluegrass Rail Builds Short Line Business

Midwest & Bluegrass Rail, LLC (MBRAIL) has acquired Camp Chase Railway (Ohio), Chesapeake & Indiana Railroad (Indiana), Vermilion Valley Railroad (Illinois), and Youngstown & Southeastern Railroad (Ohio and Pennsylvania) from Indiana Boxcar Corp. They are the first small roads for MBRAIL, which formed in 2019 with the mission of “creating a full-service rail company.” The company has offices in Kansas City, Mo., and Lexington, Ky. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

September Railway Age Digital Edition On Line

The September 2020 issue of Railway Age is now available digitally. It includes feature stories on machine vision, top-of-rail friction management and digitalizing the Interline Settlement System, as well as a Product and Innovations Showcase spotlighting the rail supply community.

Alberta’s CBR Fiasco: NDP Clowns to the Left, UCP Jokers to the Right

In a desperately irrational move at the end of its term in the winter of 2019, Alberta’s former NDP (New Democratic Party) government tried to defy Economics 101 by dramatically increasing crude-by-rail capacity in order to raise prices. Nobody outside former Premier Rachel Notley’s statist brain trust thought that was a good idea. Especially not the railways: CN and Canadian Pacific both insisted that the government commit to paying the $C3.7 billion contract price, whether or not the trains were needed. In the event, “or not” turned out to be a very wise condition for the railways.

2020 Women in Rail Awards Deadline Is Sept. 30: Nominate Now!

Do you know a visionary woman in the rail industry? The deadline for the fourth annual Railway Age Women in Rail awards is fast approaching: Sept. 30. Nominate a colleague or yourself today.

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