Can this deal signal a major strategic shift in transport development in the world?
I mean, many politicians are constatntly speaking of the need to develop railway transportations which are “greener” than auto transportations. Can it be so that Buffet felt this new trend and made a bet on the industry that’s likely to gain government support and thus gain new profits in the near future? – Clearly he thinks that railways will play a major role in US freight transport in the future, and there is good reason to think that he is right. For example, a more significant point about BN’s traffic is that (in 2008) while 8.5% of tons were intermodal, about 26% of revenues came from intermodal (containers and truck trailers hauled on rail). Intermodal has been the fastest source of revenue growth for US railways in the last decade, and intermodal is the area where railways can have the most impact on truck traffic and highway congestion (and energy savings). The difficulty with this argument is that, to date, there is no US Government policy permitting public investment in the
