Analyst: American Railcar Industries, Inc. has

American Railcar Industries, Inc. has listed a “sizable order” of 3,500 freight cars from lessor CIT Rail Resources in its March 1, 2011 Securities & Exchange Commission Form 10-K, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc. Director-Industrial Manufacturers Steve Barger reports in an analysis of the company released Wednesday.

ARI expects to start delivering the new cars, which Barger anticipates as being a mix of tank cars and covered hoppers, in April, with deliveries lasting about a year. “In our view, this order helps mitigate some of the concerns regarding market share and mix we [have expressed], Barger said. “We estimate that with this order and another mentioned on ARI’s fourth-quarter 2010 conference call, ARI’s backlog likely approximates 5,600. Given this development, we now have more confidence in our current modeling assumptions of 5,200 orders and 4,600 deliveries. Additionally, while we continue to expect ARI’s first-quarter 2011 will suffer from a difficult mix and pricing, we believe this order should improve [results for] the remainder of the year.

ARI has not yet announced this major order from CIT (it’s listed under “Other Information”), but it did allude to it when it released fourth-quarter and full-year 2010 financials last week. “During 2010, the railcar industry saw railcar loadings increase by almost 10%, orders for approximately 30,000 new railcars, and a reduction of approximately 130,000 railcars in storage, according to an independent third party industry analyst,” said ARI President and CEO James Cowan. “We received orders for approximately 2,590 new railcars during 2010 and order activity has begun to increase significantly thus far in 2011.”

“We continue to believe shares of the railcar manufacturers will trade in conjunction with industry backlog, which we expect will continue to improve,” Barger said.