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Sometimes railroads are in such a strong position they simply turn away business because it does not meet their minimum revenue objectives. But you must understand CN in eastern Canada and CMQ are neither in this position. Since Irving originates much of the traffic out of St John, they are in contr...

It is not all that hard to understand, Irving knows both CN and CMQ are desperate for their business out of St John, and this competition drives down carload revenue. Railroads make a lot more on captive loads. Bridge traffic is historically revenue weak. As a former BAR director, I do have some und...

Yes, I understand your point. But consider this, Irving is the source of many of the loads on the eastern portion of the CMQ. They are famous for squeezing the last penny out of everything. Irving has several choices of routes, including CN. This is bridge traffic, which historically pays less, espe...

The rule of thumb is that a railroad must have a minimum of 100 carloads per mile every year. With 480 miles of trackage, the CMQ is well below this number. According to their financial report there were 6688 loads in the first quarter (does this include bridge traffic?), on a yearly basis this woul...

I read that CMQ Job #1 is now running 3 times a week (Brownville Jct-Farnham), and Job #2 twice a week, (Farnham-Brownville Jct). This is reflective of a nationwide slowdown, and will certainly not help profitability.

It seems to me that Irving traffic has a choice of Pan Am south from NMJ or the Newport branch, both of which need more traffic. Just not enough to feed two mouths. Yes, private equity has a long term approach to investments, better than a hedge fund, but where is the extra traffic going to come fro...

A hedge fund won't hold onto an asset unless it provides adequate return on their investment. They have pumped many millions into the CM&Q, and are barely profitable. On a cash flow basis, perhaps they are not. The hard part is ahead, growing the business to the point where their return on capit...

Being well capitalized helps

CSX has looked once again at lowering the Howard Street tunnel clearances to allow double stacks and the price has been reduced to about 425 million. CSX and the State of MD have committed funds to make this happen and are awaiting help from the Federal Govt to make it happen. This is a much better ...

The fracking revolution isnt going to end because of low oil prices. The horse has left the barn. The Saudis and others might have thought that flooding the market with oil will bring the fracking house down. They are used to competing with large nationalized and international oil companies....howev...

With the world price of crude now in the low $50s, rail transport of Bakken and other western sourced crude is at a pricing disadvantage with foreign sourced oil. If US and Canadian sourced oil becomes cheaper than foreign oil, then there will be pressure to restart the trains, and perhaps, even thr...

CSX has been unable to gain approval of a double stack container yard in either Jessup (south of Baltimore) or in Baltimore itself. There is now talk of CSX participating in the plan to enlargen the B&P tunnels but even if this was possible it would be many years in the future. So basically ther...

Yes, the value is in the power plant, but it is curious that a recycler would want to operate a power plant.

The Bucksport mill sold for 60 million. I would have to think that this amount greatly exceeds the value of scrap metal that can be gained from the destruction of the mill. Shredded scarp steel has a current value of $343 per long ton according to the web, and steel prices are plummeting. Clearly th...

Irving would never own the Brownville Junction-St Jeane line. It is a difficult and expensive line to operate and with little on line industry. However, they will feed just enough traffic over it to keep a second party operator in business so Irving can use the route to bargain for the best price to...