Sam,
Thanks for your response...most intriguing was this...
"if it were up to me, I would first simply place a two story car containing bikeracks at the lower level and passenger seats at the upper level on every Amtrak train in the country.”
My uncle, a man with a sixth grade education, who worked in the trucking industry in his early life before some of his creative ideas made him rich, lived in Jacksonville, Florida. He went to the HQ of the local railroad company in the early 1960’s and presented to them a creative idea as to what he saw as the future for railroad companies. His idea was to have trucks pull their cargo trailers directly onto the railcars, thus eliminating the cost of unloading and reloading their shipments onto the railcars. He didn’t have a catchy name for his idea, just the concept! Needless to say, the railroad executives dismissed his idea with the reason that it would require a huge increase in manufacturing truck trailers. My uncle gave up on his idea and didn’t go further with it! However, in 2009 his original concept is used by all railroads and they call it the “Piggy-Back” system of loading trailers directly on to the flat bed railcars. Another creative thing that he came up with and was the first person to undertake here in the US related to the Volkswagen automobile! Many might not remember, but the original VW imported into the US came in ONE color……….black! Living in Florida and subject to a lot of solar rays, he was believed to be the first person in the country to have a VW that had the original black paint on the lower portion, but had the top painted white. A little trivia --who was the first person to have a two-tone VW…. Norman Cary Thagard, in Jacksonville, Florida. And finally, the way he made his fortune was in the most mundane of ways. He came up with an idea while observing the huge influx of “Yankees” moving to Florida, starting in the late 50’s and early 60’s, and then listening to one of their biggest complaints about their new homes. Uncle Cary starting making trips to the Stark, Florida area, southwest from Jax, and began buying up basically worthless farm acreage, that all his buddies told him was the stupidest thing that he had ever come up with, since his idea didn’t involve the actual building of homes, where the land developers were making ALL the money. What he was reacting to was listening too all those ‘Yankees’ complain about one thing that came with their new Florida tract homes. They hated the fact that their yards were mostly sand, and that the growing of lawns was a long and laborious task, and they didn’t like the idea of laboring and waiting to see a few sprigs expand to cover their sand trap yards. On his ‘worthless’ farm acreage he started growing and harvesting ‘lawn grass’……grass that quickly was pre-sold, as homeowners and builders lined up to buy his instant lawn solution.
Now back to the railroad industry , considering the major thing you can take away from my uncle’s story is that the merger of the Thagard/Lindsay gene pool, only proves the adage about ‘some acorns falling further from the tree, than others’.(:>)
One thing about the railroad industry is the fact that it’s had more lives that Felix the Cat! My first major hit in the stock market took place way back in the early 1970’s, during the Arab Oil Embargo fiasco. I happened to meet an oil company executive for one of the majors, and when I asked him what would be the end result of the oil shortage I thought he would merely talk about the actual oil companies, but he told me…” The biggest beneficiary from this shortage will be the railroad industry, as it will spur huge investments in the rail infrastructure as we will need a more cost effective way to ship goods to our expanding market areas.” That night I went home and started researching the various railroad companies, and just by chance I came across a company with the odd name…Varlen, a company located in the suburbs of Chicago. fundinguniverse.com Then on a whim, I called the only person that I knew in Chicago, and requested his help in taking the time to drive out and view this company’s facility during the day. What I wanted him to tell me was if the employee car parking lot was filled and if it looked like there was a lot of activity going on in their plant. His report back told me that the car lot was filled and it was turning over three times a day, as the new shifts were coming in to refurbish train locomotive engines and to make a simple iron spike that railroad companies needed to improve their railroad tracks because of the increased usage by their trains. With that I started buying Varlen stock at around $5.00 a share, shares that shortly increased by a few hundred percentage points and eventually was taken over by another company, Amsted in 1999.
I see the same events coming to fruition with the railroad industry just one more time, IF we can rebound from the current economic crisis. Personally, I don’t think we are out of the woods in this recovery…some of this latest news about the earnings coming from the large banks……is merely a case of ‘smoke and mirrors’(IMO) Prime example was the recent announcement from Goldman Sachs about their (1Q-09) earnings results, only they buried in the report that since they switched from a fiscal year ending in November, 2008 to reporting on a calendar year basis (This was a requirement for them changing to the status of becoming a commercial bank)..the lost month of December, 2008, they had a loss of $780 million dollars.
IMO, Trinity is a long term investment…with a nice dividend to tidy one over until this happens, but in market segments that will participate in an economic recovery. T. Boone Pickens is right when it comes to more utilization of natural gas vs. crude oil as being the answer to our energy needs. This is why I like the LNG tanks and barge segment of the Trinity market segments.
Going back to the bank segment, I think the regional banks will see some appreciation in their stocks when the rebound is more firmly in place, but one can’t wait as their stocks will benefit well before we see the economic data in the news. It’s for that reason and for a nice dividend play; recently I accumulated some shares in (SAVB). I wouldn’t necessarily suggest anyone buying the stock now, as it bounced about $1.50 a share this past week. It’s a very thinly traded stock and any purchase should be done with a tight limit price order, and well below the normal quoted spread between the bid/ask…..I was able to get my position and I never paid the going ask price.
And finally the only other common stock that I’ve bought of late is (KG)…recent call option activity has been encouraging, and any good news on the FDA approval front should give them a lift. My position in this stock is miniscule -- with no firm conviction that FDA approvals are necessarily in the cards for them.
Good luck and good biking…….but always remember why Matt Lauer(NBC-Today Show) is wearing his arm cast! (:>)
PS: Note that rail shipments were way down in last week's report......so again note....(TRN) isn't a short term play. |
