Is Union Pacific Corp. Looking At A Possible Rebound This Year?

[jordon412]

Time to talk about how Union Pacific is doing on the stock market.
http://bidnessetcnews.tumblr.com/post/122765858216/is-union-pacific-corporation-looking-at-a-possible

 

[Enzo1]

Time to talk about how Union Pacific is doing on the stock market.
http://bidnessetcnews.tumblr.com/po...ion-pacific-corporation-looking-at-a-possible

Nothing to worry about, from what I can see, UP is still doing well, and I still see the regularly scheduled trains with the typical crews..... I think a bigger picture is being missed, and that is railcar movements in the US as a whole are down quite a bit from where they were last year. It speaks that the economy is not quite as strong as what everybody wants to feed you.

 

[JCitron]

Nothing to worry about, from what I can see, UP is still doing well, and I still see the regularly scheduled trains with the typical crews..... I think a bigger picture is being missed, and that is railcar movements in the US as a whole are down quite a bit from where they were last year. It speaks that the economy is not quite as strong as what everybody wants to feed you.

I've read that too and the carloads are down in Canada and Mexico as well. They said that it was due to a big drop in coal. Maybe this has to do with the warmer days, more daylight, but not so hot as to need to put on the A/C full blast like most summers.

The economy seems to be holding its own up where I live. My brother is in the graphics production side of the incentive market, and his business is doing well. When he slows down we worry, and so far he's been busy with new orders every day from his customers. That said, the economy might not be going very, very super strong, but it's not declining. If it's too strong, that can lead to inflation and a bust. It's like boiling water... too much heat and everything burns, just enough gas (money flow) and then everything comes out right. The banks and the feds are talking about tightening up the money flow a bit by raising interest rates if that says anything.

 

[Enzo1]

I've read that too and the carloads are down in Canada and Mexico as well. They said that it was due to a big drop in coal. Maybe this has to do with the warmer days, more daylight, but not so hot as to need to put on the A/C full blast like most summers.

The economy seems to be holding its own up where I live. My brother is in the graphics production side of the incentive market, and his business is doing well. When he slows down we worry, and so far he's been busy with new orders every day from his customers. That said, the economy might not be going very, very super strong, but it's not declining. If it's too strong, that can lead to inflation and a bust. It's like boiling water... too much heat and everything burns, just enough gas (money flow) and then everything comes out right. The banks and the feds are talking about tightening up the money flow a bit by raising interest rates if that says anything.

There's not a visible decline because what's happened is we have flattened out right now. Economy is holding its own and is doing alright, but currently there's not huge expansion either. People have been trying to feed that there is growth, but the growth is A: Temporary or B: Very small and has little actual impact on the economy. Right now though, everything is doing okay, and there's not too much to worry about until gas prices take another hike. If that happens, then tighten the belts, the economy is going to shrink again.
Now some of last years records was thanks to an incredible Winter previous to it. The winter was so harsh that trains actually didn't move, which led to back log. When the winter finally concluded, car loads flooded, and production doesn't stop, so the cycle was almost continuous into early part of 2015. Once the backlog cleared out, it revealed that the economy while doing decent right now, is still not near the size it was pre-2006/2007 mega collapse.

 

[JCitron]

There's not a visible decline because what's happened is we have flattened out right now. Economy is holding its own and is doing alright, but currently there's not huge expansion either. People have been trying to feed that there is growth, but the growth is A: Temporary or B: Very small and has little actual impact on the economy. Right now though, everything is doing okay, and there's not too much to worry about until gas prices take another hike. If that happens, then tighten the belts, the economy is going to shrink again.
Now some of last years records was thanks to an incredible Winter previous to it. The winter was so harsh that trains actually didn't move, which led to back log. When the winter finally concluded, car loads flooded, and production doesn't stop, so the cycle was almost continuous into early part of 2015. Once the backlog cleared out, it revealed that the economy while doing decent right now, is still not near the size it was pre-2006/2007 mega collapse.

Excellent summary.

We will probably never see that kind of growth for decades due to the major collapse in the over grown housing market which collapsed so severely, and the subsequent near bank collapse because of it. The banks right now, though lending money, are very tight at the same time so even people with excellent credit can't get loans unless they meet some of the strictest criteria. This is very unlike the predatory lending which took place in that period where they were handing out loans to everyone who asked for money and caused so much trouble they got into when no one had the income to pay them back.

John

 

[Enzo1]

Excellent summary.

We will probably never see that kind of growth for decades due to the major collapse in the over grown housing market which collapsed so severely, and the subsequent near bank collapse because of it. The banks right now, though lending money, are very tight at the same time so even people with excellent credit can't get loans unless they meet some of the strictest criteria. This is very unlike the predatory lending which took place in that period where they were handing out loans to everyone who asked for money and caused so much trouble they got into when no one had the income to pay them back.

John

Very true. I also recall reading an article from a business report and trains magazine that 500,000+ (200,000 of which were Automobile loads) car loads were back-logged, adding intense numbers to the current carloads that needed hauled. Also contributing to what was thought as growth is the fact that several RR's actually pulled some stuff that most people probably haven't seen make a long-haul run in 10+ years actually break out of prisons and take care of some business. This is because there was a power-shortage, and mostly a shortage of modern power, but this wasn't as harsh on RR's like CSX, CP, UP, and NS as they put a bunch of stuff into storage, but if you were BNSF on the other-hand, you had to go out and lease ES44AC's from Citi Group. Never have I seen so many SD40-2's, SD60's, and C40-8's and Dash 9's on trains... The last time I saw common stuff like that was late 90's early 2000's up into 2004. There was also probably more pool action than I've ever seen at one time, but it actually got the back-log cleaned out pretty quick.

 

[JCitron]

Very true. I also recall reading an article from a business report and trains magazine that 500,000+ (200,000 of which were Automobile loads) car loads were back-logged, adding intense numbers to the current carloads that needed hauled. Also contributing to what was thought as growth is the fact that several RR's actually pulled some stuff that most people probably haven't seen make a long-haul run in 10+ years actually break out of prisons and take care of some business. This is because there was a power-shortage, and mostly a shortage of modern power, but this wasn't as harsh on RR's like CSX, CP, UP, and NS as they put a bunch of stuff into storage, but if you were BNSF on the other-hand, you had to go out and lease ES44AC's from Citi Group. Never have I seen so many SD40-2's, SD60's, and C40-8's and Dash 9's on trains... The last time I saw common stuff like that was late 90's early 2000's up into 2004. There was also probably more pool action than I've ever seen at one time, but it actually got the back-log cleaned out pretty quick.

I too have seen some ancient power up my way too along with lots of leasers. It's hard to tell with PanAm though. Their equipment is old and shoddy anyway and have been leasing and borrowing for years. The difference this time, however, with an increased number of foreign power from BNSF, CSX, NS (PAS joint ops), CPRail, and even CNR. You have to remember, I'm located on the very last leg of the transcontinental system on its way to the upper northeastern part of the US, so what I see is barely a trickle on what's leftover of the traffic that made it across the US.

I read the same article too, or an excerpt from it, I think it was a link off of GoRail.org.

John

 

[Enzo1]

I too have seen some ancient power up my way too along with lots of leasers. It's hard to tell with PanAm though. Their equipment is old and shoddy anyway and have been leasing and borrowing for years. The difference this time, however, with an increased number of foreign power from BNSF, CSX, NS (PAS joint ops), CPRail, and even CNR. You have to remember, I'm located on the very last leg of the transcontinental system on its way to the upper northeastern part of the US, so what I see is barely a trickle on what's leftover of the traffic that made it across the US.

I read the same article too, or an excerpt from it, I think it was a link off of GoRail.org.

John

Well it depends, like if you were seeing some GP9's or stuff like that, then heck yea, that's pulling ancient stuff out. But I couldn't believe my eyes, I haven't seen SD60's in action on a long haul train in 12 years.. 'bout 11 years was the last time I saw C40-8's out in full force, but wow! It felt like my childhood again with modern stuff thrown in. There were a few trains where 5-6 SD70M's were on point for intermodal trains and even manifest trains. Not only that, trains were running probably at some of the largest sizes that I've seen in quite sometime. I wish it would happen again, because I would gladly take the old power plus, pooling from every RR in the US including CN, CP, KCS, CSX and yes even NS, though I only saw 1 NS visitor overall.

 

[JCitron]

Well it depends, like if you were seeing some GP9's or stuff like that, then heck yea, that's pulling ancient stuff out. But I couldn't believe my eyes, I haven't seen SD60's in action on a long haul train in 12 years.. 'bout 11 years was the last time I saw C40-8's out in full force, but wow! It felt like my childhood again with modern stuff thrown in. There were a few trains where 5-6 SD70M's were on point for intermodal trains and even manifest trains. Not only that, trains were running probably at some of the largest sizes that I've seen in quite sometime. I wish it would happen again, because I would gladly take the old power plus, pooling from every RR in the US including CN, CP, KCS, CSX and yes even NS, though I only saw 1 NS visitor overall.

That must have been awesome to see and really exciting. Back when I was a kid, there would be big potato harvests up on the BAR. This was prior to the Penn Central fiasco. I remember seeing long trains of BAR boxcars pulled by New Haven Alcos. There would be RS3s, sometimes in the middle, as well. I also remember seeing Baldwins and sometimes some TrainMasters. There were even NYC lead trains as well. Then PC screwed the harvest and the railroads lost the business as the farmers went to trucks for what was left of their ruined business because of the screw up.

We see GP9s all the time up here and SD60s and SD70s are modern compared to their old Guilford GP40-2s and SD40s they use most of the time, except for run through power from NS and CSX. Sometimes we see some real modern equipment from BNSF and
UP, but they are on the coal trains on their way to Bow NH, and are rarely seen because they run at night. In the old days, it was New Haven, and later Penn Central that pulled these trains in conjunction with the Boston and Maine. Today, it's done by the Providence and Worcester then via Guilford up to Bow.

Prior to Conrail, the NYC and later Penn Central ran freights to Selkirk from Lawrence, MA. This was manifest freight LASE and it's sister SELA. There were others too from Rigby that stopped in Lawrence as well. When I passed by the Lawrence yard in these days, there were old Alco C-420s and GEs on the front. Later on everything was painted Conrail Quality Blue and the GEs and Alco units disappeared.

After the Guilford merger of the B&M, D&H, and MEC, we saw all kinds of equipment including D&H Alcos, C420s, and RS3s in their beautiful blue, silver, and gold paint scheme. Some had come from the Lehigh Valley and had the LV flag on them. The MEC pooled in their U-boats and we'd see a handful of these still in the MEC green and gold, all mixed in with the B&M blue dipped GP40s and D&H units. All this is gone now, sadly. Guilford painted it all grey and orange, the Alcos were scrapped along with the GEs, and all that's left are the PAR blue SD40s and GP40s and a handful of GP9s.

John