Hints and tips:
...Grain for export is currently being idled in six Midwestern states, with beer and dry food, cars, car parts, consumer goods, metals and cement also stuck....
...Business groups warned that a strike could cripple supply chains, raise food prices and make it impossible to restock store shelves and operate factories....
...In 2009 Berkshire announced the acquisition of railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $44bn including debt. The deal was paid with 60 per cent cash and 40 per cent Berkshire shares....
...Berkshire first invested in the company in 2016 and has steadily increased its stake to about 5 per cent of the Tim Cook-helmed group....
...But the runaway winner was Ford CEO Mark Fields, who began the year with the depressing news that his company was “transitioning from an auto company to an auto company and a mobility company”....
...and a string of US power companies....
...A model railway represents the Burlington Northern Santa Fe network. Sadly, there are no discounts on NetJets, the pay-per-flight private aircraft operator....
...A series of mergers in the 1990s left just Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe in the western US; Norfolk Southern and CSX in the eastern US; CP and Canadian National in Canada; and Kansas City...
...“Norfolk Southern is now the outlier,” Mr Hatch says of how the company has suffered compared with others....
...Burlington Northern Santa Fe, operator of the US’s second-biggest rail network, also did well, reporting a 12 per cent increase in net earnings despite a 5 per cent decrease in revenues....
...The secondary market for shuttle trains on the Burlington North Santa Fe and Union Pacific railways, which dart between the western farm belt and grain customers, illustrates the situation....
...and pursue the best interests of the company and its stockholders.”...
...The company’s operations span insurance and lending, railways, manufacturing and power companies, and it maintains a portfolio of minority stakes in other large US companies....
...Santa Fe, operator of the US’s second-biggest rail network....
...companies....
...Many of the railroads — particularly Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the second-biggest, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway — have had to invest heavily to relieve congestion....
...BNSF, the railway, and Berkshire Hathaway Energy publish quarterly earnings reports of their own but analysts say other divisions report substantially fewer details than competitor companies....
...Its operating margin has gone from 10 to 30 per cent, as the company has squeezed labour and other costs....
...Berkshire’s main businesses span insurance, railways and power companies, and the group also owns retailers, industrial companies, newspapers, and a portfolio of stakes in brand-names groups such as Coca-Cola...
...The containers are either coming from or going to local distribution centres, carrying toys, dog food, car parts and other consumer goods....
...Frigid conditions in the US Midwest caused delays and disruption in shipping cargo by rail, hurting Mr Buffett’s railroad subsidiary, Burlington Northern, the company said on Friday....
...BNSF said that, during 2013, its northern corridor route received more of its $4bn capital spending than any other part of its network, but that the work to install new sidings and second tracks had added...
...The investment guru’s conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, runs Burlington Northern, owner of a train carrying crude oil that crashed into a derailed vehicle on Monday night in North Dakota....
...Biggest Deal: The $26.6bn acquisition of US railway Burlington Northern Santa Fe in 2009....
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