On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 3:07 PM, ray tylicki <raytylicki@gmail.com> wrote:
3. Burlington Northern- Now Traded as BRK-B and owned by Warren Buffet. Unfortunately I did not have time to hit the worlds largest shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway with 40,000 other people in Omaha Nebraska. But I do know this from my friends at Northwestern University. Warren Buffet is a railfan who has always wanted to own a railroad and collected Lionel Trains. However this time at 85 he may be over his head. Railroads are extremely complex systems even more so then the Insurance Industry. Its still wait and see. Coal and Grain Trains is being exported to China from Wyoming and IL in BNSF lines but Intermodal is way down.BNSF Manager Matt Rose is in favor of high speed rail and some projects are starting on his lines. Warren Buffet owns a number of companies from GEICO to Dairy Queen. I own a few shares and perhaps I am thinking of buying more but I would not bet the house on this stock trading at 85-79.00 a share. Expecialy with all the bad weather and the Claims that GEICO insurance has had to pay because of it
4. Genesee and Wyoming - This was held at the Hyatt in Greenwich CT. G&W is a family controlled shortline ( Fuller Family)holding company that owns the B&P,P&W in Portland OR, St Lawrence and Atlantic in Portland ME and railraods in Australia and Europe. All in all they must own about 50 short lines. This meeting I really enjoyed. Any railroad that has a 4 year old in the meeting room as a shareholding with his Thomas the Train engines must be trusted. Any parent that would put G&W in there kids college fund must trust that this company will be around for the next 20 years. There was some concern from management that I was a hobo/shareholder but I mitigated that with my expertise on railroads as perhaps one of the few people in the room who have hands on experience with the railroads. G&W owns the Ghan Train in Australia. There stratigy in the US is to find ways to access raw materials in the US and export them to Asia. The Marcelis Shale in PA is working very well for them with Carloads up. As a Shortline they have done some cherry picking and have turned around railroads that the class ones did not want into some real cherrys. G&W is builiding green locomotives in Ohio and treats its customers very well. BTW they are also hiring and I was told to Put in a application and tell you guys to get off there boxcars and move up to the Locomotives as Enginners and Conductors . G&W has trouble finding good people who enjoy good pay and working outside and on call 24 hours a day. If you are single this is the job for you. If you got kids and a wife this may be a problem for them. Greenwich is a Suburb of NYC and has no freight trains but is on Metro North. The Hyatts Health Club let me use there hot showers and I also got a good breakfast out of the deal as a atendee at the meeting.
If anyone want to attend next a railroad stock holders meeting let me know and I will get you a proxy of one of the shars that I own
1.CSX- CSX really does suck and so does Detroit where this meeting was held- This has gone from my favorite railroad to my least favorite. Shook hands with CSX Pres. Mike Ward who has a really nice tan. Still banting that passenger train dont make money and fuck Obama and his high speed trains "We dont need it". Mike Ward started out as a working stiff in a ruff and tumble Baltimore Hood working his way up thru his parents pool hall. Somehow got a scholarship to Yale and they must have changed his brain over there. Came to CSX thru the Intern program and worked as a Coal Clerk at the Coal Yard on the Baltimore Waterfront. Worked his way into sales and other managment posistions. He knows coal all right and seems to be a mans man but as far as the workers at CSX he seems to have lost touch with his home roots. CSX made in excess of 4 Billion Dollers last year. They only are speding 2 billion on upgrades to track. Sure a Billion sounds like a lot but consider that amtrak gets a Billion dollers a year and they are barley scraping by. CSX has more rough track on its New York Central Line as well as its B&O Line. A positive note- CSX is sending salespeople to light industries along its lines to put in Swithches to haul boxcars. The sales intive is starting in Florida so expect more trains there.
2.Norfolk Southern- This has gone from my least favorite to my most favorite. NS President Wick Moorman has come out of the closet as a railfan and Lionel Train Collector. They are starting a steam program using restored TN railway steam locomtives. They have put in new passenger trains in Virgina from Lynchburgh VA (why would anyone want to go there? But this train is packed with people wanting to get out of there) and in North Carolina. There Tracks are running very smooth on there PGH- Harrisburgh Line. The Shareholders meeting was in Colonial Wiliumsburgh and that is a nice place but had to take a Amtrak from Richmond VA to get there. Got a get out of jail free note from Moorman which I had to use in Newark NJ in my run in with a NS cop there. Newark and Oak Island is getting very hot. Traffic is increasing in the Norfolk VA area in coal and intermodal
3. Rail America/Fortress Investment Group- Rail America owns about 22 short lines 2 of which are Florida East Coast and New England Central in Vermont-Mass-CT. Its great to have a railroad president who just been indited. Danial Mudd ran Fannie Mae in his job before his current job as Manager of Fortress Investment Group. *(For those of you who having been living under a rock, Fannie Mae and the big banks engineered a way that they could get money losing deadbeat mortgages off there books by bundling good morgages with bad deadbeat Morgages and puting them into Bonds which were sold on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. It seemed legal at them time and under the Bush Adminstration it probably was.) Fortress bought Rail Tex about 5 years ago and yes they did do a lot of investment but now they want the Cow to produce some milk. "We expect a 20% return on our investment" was the answer I got from Mudd on this." gee my savings account only pays 1% and my mutual fund only pays 6% in a down year and 8% in a good year. From what I know from the workers at New England Central they are sqeezing it out of there pay checks. The NECR has re certified its Union and its workers are pissed off as well as Florida East Coast. Todays Shortlines are spin offs of the Class Ones (CSX,NS,BNSF,UP) and many of those workers enjoyed good pay and benefits when they worked for the class ones. When Rail America took over they saw those benefits vanish and they made working for the railroad about as bad as working for Mcdonalds
Fortress is a International Investment Fund that has its money in all sorts of enterprises all over the world including Asia. From what I gathered is that they got in the railroad buiness not for the long haul like Warren Buffet of GEICO/ Berkshire Hathaway but to Flip the railroad industry for a quick buck on behalf of its high rolling hedge fund managers. Mudd was there man because he did just that for Fannie Mae. The situation as it stands is that Rail America has just been raped and flipped. Rail America is now being traded as a separate company under the symbol RA but under control by Fortress Investment and its Parrent Company Blackrock. One reason that I hit this shareholder meeting is to ask this question -"What is going to happen to the Doller$$" Mudd- Its going to continue to decline. QE2 was supposed to increase exports and thus increase train traffic for Intermodal but thats not happening. We might go to the Euro as the worlds reserve currency (see Alex Jones Infowars on this) but its more likley that some sort of Asian Currency might end up taking the Dollers place on this.2.Norfolk Southern- This has gone from my least favorite to my most favorite. NS President Wick Moorman has come out of the closet as a railfan and Lionel Train Collector. They are starting a steam program using restored TN railway steam locomtives. They have put in new passenger trains in Virgina from Lynchburgh VA (why would anyone want to go there? But this train is packed with people wanting to get out of there) and in North Carolina. There Tracks are running very smooth on there PGH- Harrisburgh Line. The Shareholders meeting was in Colonial Wiliumsburgh and that is a nice place but had to take a Amtrak from Richmond VA to get there. Got a get out of jail free note from Moorman which I had to use in Newark NJ in my run in with a NS cop there. Newark and Oak Island is getting very hot. Traffic is increasing in the Norfolk VA area in coal and intermodal
3. Rail America/Fortress Investment Group- Rail America owns about 22 short lines 2 of which are Florida East Coast and New England Central in Vermont-Mass-CT. Its great to have a railroad president who just been indited. Danial Mudd ran Fannie Mae in his job before his current job as Manager of Fortress Investment Group. *(For those of you who having been living under a rock, Fannie Mae and the big banks engineered a way that they could get money losing deadbeat mortgages off there books by bundling good morgages with bad deadbeat Morgages and puting them into Bonds which were sold on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. It seemed legal at them time and under the Bush Adminstration it probably was.) Fortress bought Rail Tex about 5 years ago and yes they did do a lot of investment but now they want the Cow to produce some milk. "We expect a 20% return on our investment" was the answer I got from Mudd on this." gee my savings account only pays 1% and my mutual fund only pays 6% in a down year and 8% in a good year. From what I know from the workers at New England Central they are sqeezing it out of there pay checks. The NECR has re certified its Union and its workers are pissed off as well as Florida East Coast. Todays Shortlines are spin offs of the Class Ones (CSX,NS,BNSF,UP) and many of those workers enjoyed good pay and benefits when they worked for the class ones. When Rail America took over they saw those benefits vanish and they made working for the railroad about as bad as working for Mcdonalds
3. Burlington Northern- Now Traded as BRK-B and owned by Warren Buffet. Unfortunately I did not have time to hit the worlds largest shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway with 40,000 other people in Omaha Nebraska. But I do know this from my friends at Northwestern University. Warren Buffet is a railfan who has always wanted to own a railroad and collected Lionel Trains. However this time at 85 he may be over his head. Railroads are extremely complex systems even more so then the Insurance Industry. Its still wait and see. Coal and Grain Trains is being exported to China from Wyoming and IL in BNSF lines but Intermodal is way down.BNSF Manager Matt Rose is in favor of high speed rail and some projects are starting on his lines. Warren Buffet owns a number of companies from GEICO to Dairy Queen. I own a few shares and perhaps I am thinking of buying more but I would not bet the house on this stock trading at 85-79.00 a share. Expecialy with all the bad weather and the Claims that GEICO insurance has had to pay because of it
4. Genesee and Wyoming - This was held at the Hyatt in Greenwich CT. G&W is a family controlled shortline ( Fuller Family)holding company that owns the B&P,P&W in Portland OR, St Lawrence and Atlantic in Portland ME and railraods in Australia and Europe. All in all they must own about 50 short lines. This meeting I really enjoyed. Any railroad that has a 4 year old in the meeting room as a shareholding with his Thomas the Train engines must be trusted. Any parent that would put G&W in there kids college fund must trust that this company will be around for the next 20 years. There was some concern from management that I was a hobo/shareholder but I mitigated that with my expertise on railroads as perhaps one of the few people in the room who have hands on experience with the railroads. G&W owns the Ghan Train in Australia. There stratigy in the US is to find ways to access raw materials in the US and export them to Asia. The Marcelis Shale in PA is working very well for them with Carloads up. As a Shortline they have done some cherry picking and have turned around railroads that the class ones did not want into some real cherrys. G&W is builiding green locomotives in Ohio and treats its customers very well. BTW they are also hiring and I was told to Put in a application and tell you guys to get off there boxcars and move up to the Locomotives as Enginners and Conductors . G&W has trouble finding good people who enjoy good pay and working outside and on call 24 hours a day. If you are single this is the job for you. If you got kids and a wife this may be a problem for them. Greenwich is a Suburb of NYC and has no freight trains but is on Metro North. The Hyatts Health Club let me use there hot showers and I also got a good breakfast out of the deal as a atendee at the meeting.
If anyone want to attend next a railroad stock holders meeting let me know and I will get you a proxy of one of the shars that I own
