Times are good for American railways

FEW INDUSTRIES are more vulnerable to events that depress revenues and increase expenses than America’s railways. The basic business model is to lug lots of stuff to offset the high fixed costs of owning fleets of locomotives and maintaining thousands of miles of track. That has been hard as America’s supply chain has come unglued, first because of covid-19 and then as it has waned. Ports are gridlocked, warehouses over-stuffed and labour unavailable. It has unquestionably been a tough time to be a rail company and, it turns out, a remarkably good time to be one.