Motivated by lower costs per ton-mile, US Class I railroads have been replacing 263,000-pound gross vehicle weight (GVW) covered hopper cars with 286,000-pound GVW cars. In many cases, shortline railroads would have to upgrade their tracks and bridges to handle the heavier cars. This paper used...

While there have been many studies of the impact of railroad deregulation on agricultural transportation markets there have been very few that address the impact of railroad mergers on rail grain prices and the distribution of efficiency gains. The purpose of this paper is to add to the sparse...

The participants in the grain logistics system need forecasts of railroad grain carloads. Although forecasting studies have been conducted for virtually every mode, no forecasting studies of quarterly railroad grain transportation have been published. The objectives of the paper are (1) specify...

This paper is the first empirical analysis of U.S. short line railroad profitability using primary cost and revenue data. Models of short line profitability are developed using Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) as the profitability measure. The sample includes 34 short lines operating in...