News from Reuters and the WSJ...
== Reuters =========
U.S. HEADLINE STOCKS - Issues to watch, August 25
August 25, 1998 07:59 AM
NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Issues to watch this morning:
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-- Union Pacific Corp. UNP has agreed to buy back 107 miles of track as part of an effort to recover from service problems, according to the Wall Street Journal. The stock closed at 40-13/16.
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== WSJ =============
Union Pacific to buyback track, save lines - WSJ
August 25, 1998 03:50 AM
NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Union Pacific Corp. UNP , taking additional steps to solve its service woes, has agreed to buy back 107 miles of track and save as much as several hundred miles of other track it had planned to abandon, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Among the moves to expand track space, Union Pacific said it agreed to repurchase a 107-mile line in northeastern Kansas it had sold in 1990 to RailTex Inc. RTEX , a San Antonio operator of short-line railroads. RailTex and Union Pacific declined to disclose the price or terms of the repurchase. Union Pacific said it will use the line to operate empty coal trains returning from the Midwest to Wyoming coal fields and to provide an alternate route through a heavy traffic area. In addition, Union Pacific said it is "rail banking" another route for possible future use and considering yet another for similar treatment. The company said it notified the federal Surface Transportation Board yesterday that it plans to keep the 173-mile Tennessee Pass route in Colorado. The line, one of the steepest and costliest to operate in the U.S., was slated for abandonment and possible scrapping.
Union Pacific also said it was studying its so-called Modoc Line, linking southern Oregon and western Nevada, for possible mothballing. The line, which can provide a shortcut for forest products headed east, has been slated for abandonment.
"We may not need them, but it makes good sense to hang onto them," Union Pacific Railroad spokesman John Bromley the Journal. "It would be foolish to tear them up, and regret it later."
Union Pacific's actions are the latest in a series of responses to massive service failures that began in Texas last summer and spread to other parts of its system.
((New York News Desk 212 859-1700)) REUTERS |
