GLG News by Rail Car Leasing Experts

Two years ago, the ethanol industry went into overdrive in expanding production facilities and ordering railroad tank cars to move the expected flood of new production. No one, however, looked at how the ethanol was to be handled at the customer end of the distribution network and that has produced...

Right if you seek only Equity Returns from an ATM Portfolio, but timing is ripe for Fixed Income investors. All the warnings and diligence advice is right on the button, but if you are looking to replace minimal returns on a portion of your fixed income portfolio, a properly structured ATM buy can produce...

It’s hard to argue with success, and success is what the railroads are currently achieving after a decades -long battle for survival with their highway and barge competition. While all modes of transportation saw freight traffic soften in recent quarters, only the railroad companies have been able to...

The growth rate of the ethanol industry has slowed significantly in recent months as the price of corn pinched the profit margins of most firms and put some inefficient producers out of business.  With corn prices at $5.55/bu., reformulated gasoline (ethanol) prices must be above $2.00/gal just...

The two largest railroad carload traffic segments, Agricultural products and Coal, are once again flowing in record quantities after a disappointing performance in 2007. Grain traffic is up 17% for the first 8 weeks of the year and coal shipments are up 3.4% for the year following increases last week...

Railroads, both large and small, have managed to keep raising freight rates each year, even as some of their traffic segments have suffered declines in loadings and ton miles. Although the data is still incomplete, it does not look as if the rate increases are to blame for these traffic losses. Moreover,...

Carl Icahn’s purchase of a 9.5% stake in Greenbrier Cos. seems to imply that he intends to pursue a merger between American Railcar (ARII), in which he controls a majority of the stock, and Greenbrier, two railcar builders with complimentary design portfolios and railroad business interests. The two...

Southern Company, a southeastern utility which owns and leases a large fleet of railcars, gave Wabtec and order to equip 300 of them with electric brakes. The NS and BNSF railroads had been given approval to operate trains with electric brakes in 2007, after which NS ordered 210 electric brake systems...

Last week the ARCI released the railcar industries results for the fourth quarter of 2007, including 23,722 new orders, 14,862 deliveries, and a backlog of 75, 860 cars. Normally, those types of numbers would signal a rising production schedule in the year ahead. Instead, total deliveries in 2008 are...

Both Norfolk Southern (NSC) and CSX Transportation (CSX) posted strong earnings for the fourth quarter and the year in spite of traffic losses. Costs were tightly controlled on both systems and were reduced in proportion to the contractions in traffic, allowing all of the freight rate increases to be...