GLG News by Intermodal Railcar Experts

 The American Trucking Associations' advanced seasonally adjusted for-hire truck tonnage index dropped by 0.9 percent in September, it's third straight month-over-month decline. The details are even worse. The seasonally adjusted index was just 0.8 percent above year-ago levels. September 2007...

CSX Chairman Michael Ward recently remarked on the growing opposition to coal fired utilities in the country, saying that limiting coal’s use for electricity "is probably one of the stupidest things you could do." For CSX and the other railroads, it would be a bad thing if the electric utilities turned...

With LTL giant YRC Worldwide teetering, the biggest potential winner from any shutdown or wholesale closing of YRC operating units would appear to be Arkansas Best Corp., parent of ABF Freight System. At nearly $2 billion in revenue, ABC (or ABF, which makes up the lion's share of its parent's revenue)...

BNSF railroad recently announced that the company would install Positive Train Control (PTC) technology across its entire system by Dec. 31, 2015 and in the Los Angeles basin by 2012. BNSF had been given approval by the Federal Railroad Administration to install the Electronic Train Management System...

A major group of transportation officials has adopted recommending that Washington spend $545 billion in federal-aid highway spending, or just about double the current five-year spending plan of $286 billion. It would allow the nation to address its infrastructure needs, fix freight bottlenecks, improve...

Truck capacity is being pulled out of the truckload sector at an alarming rate. J.B. Hunt has cut more than 1,400 trucks from its fleet, a 30 percent reduction, in about 18 months. Werner Enterprises and Swift Transportation have also reduced over-the-road capacity by about 10 percent. When the economy...

    The year-to-date and outlook for many of the items transported by the U.S. railroads are down, coal transportation has been positive.  The discussions that follows list some of the positives for the railroads.

    Coal companies have issued force majeure declarations to customers due to various production-related issues.  These are discussed in the section below.

    As the referenced article states, there are many benefits in the Emergency Stabilization Act for the coal industry.  One not discussed is the refund of the coal excise tax.  The commentary section discusses this.

The stock prices of all railcar builders declined after a recent prediction by a KeyBank analyst that railcar deliveries will fall in 2009. He estimated that deliveries in 2009 would fall to around 37,000 cars from the 45,000 to 50,000 cars expected this year. It is hard to argue with this forecast...