OK, we can talk about this and we can talk about that, but the fact remains that when someone conveniently posted that certain CSX management divested shares at a high sales point, then the price went down, I said to myself "DAMN! I missed the peak." So didn't sell the stock. Months later there appeared another such clipping on the Bulletin Board at Frontier. Certain people were selling large blocks of stock. I don't know who they were, directors, v.p.'s, whatever. All I know is I went home and SOLD and it was at a high point that endured for several months! Coincidence...maybe.
Now on the roads in question: One of these had a 40 mph temporary speed restriction on it for about a year. The restriction came off for a few days and went back on again for another year! We were about to make a birthday cake for that speed restriction.
Big deal, you might say. OK...no big deal...except for the fact that every train had to slow down for that TSR....50-60-70 or more trains a DAY!! So. So that spot happens to be at the bottom of a short, quick rise to the west. It's about three miles to the top of the rise going west. Travelling east there is a hill about eight miles long that is probably the ruling grade on the Lakeshore Subdivision. For some 700+ days trains had to slow coming downhill for a relatively minor TSR and RE-accelerate to try to regain track speed.
Let's do some math. Say we just averaged 60 trains a day through there. And suppose that TSR was on for 725 days. That's 43,500 restricted train movements at that single road crossing. So what? Well, let's pick a number. We'll pick one because we don't have any idea how else to figure this out, but it'll be a very conservative number, so we will look like we're trying to be fair.
How about $50. Yes, $50 increased cost to slow down and re-accelerate for , no not each engine used, but just for each train. For each train having to re-accelerate we will use the added cost of just $50. That sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it. Now I'm just a country bumpkin here, so stop me any time you think I am being unreasonable, OK? We're going to say it MIGHT cost CSX as much as $50 per train to reaccelerate back up to track speed after encountering this one TSR in place for two years at Irving, NY.
So, we have the $50 times how many trains? Oh, yes, that number we had before...what was it? Oh yes, just look above there...43,500. Yeah, I've fooled around here acting like a jerk and you've already figured it out, huh?
That's right....that one TSR cost a minimum of $2,175,000.00 and probably much, much more. But because it wasn't "in the budget" the Emerald Tower Brain Trust pi$$ed away several million dollars on a SINGLE slightly out of whack road crossing at grade. One SMALL example, one LARGE result.
That's why I do not believe anything management says when it comes to money matters. If it had cost them $175,000 to rebuild that crossing completely (signals and all), they would stil;l have $2,000,000.00 to fix, uh, CP 128, CP 124, CP 58, CP 362, CP 2,3,15,23,31,37,39, 42,47,49,73,83,85,89, and 97 just on the Lakeshore Subdivision alone. Because, you see, once these faults are repaired and trains no longer have to change their speed and consume more fuel, there will be even MORE money left over to fix even more track and when the derailments DON'T HAPPEN there is even more $$$$$ saved and on and on.
See how successful management works? You do your job, do what is right, and eventually it PAYS benefits that you can't get otherwise! And, if all works as planned, you make some money for the investor too. Remember him, the investor?
Well, investing is a act of risk taking. And the risk is that you might not get your quarterly dividend. That's why you invest. If you wanted a sure thing you'd buy a CD. But investments don't always pay off and it takes money to make money. Just imagine how soon we'd be out of business if we started paying our fuel bills late.
End of Rant...I'm tired and have to go to bed.