Years ago I had a conversation with BNSF's VP of Passenger Operations, and we had a good laugh about the stock when I suggested BNSF use it to force liquidation of Amtrak.
BNSF, however, uses Amtrak as a profit center. Every year Amtrak pays BNSF around $7 million to keep their trains on time. However, this serves another purpose.
Every morning, the Passenger Ops VP gets a printout of how well the railroad has serviced Amtrak. This report tells him how well his network is flowing. It's like the canary in the coal mine. If Amtrak is late, it means that there are other problems in the system. If so, that printout is buck-slipped to the other VP's at Fort Worth so they can see where the problems are and what can be done about them.
In that sense, Amtrak is a useful tool for BNSF.
Interesting. The federal subsidies for Amtrak then also serve to support payment to BNSF. Very sharp of BNSF to use the
system that way. Know the stock is worthless, but just wondered how the subsidies (advocated by the lobbyist groups of lefties and rail passengers and unions)featured in the ownership.
Like a lot of billionaires— they learn to glean subsidy and tax benefits for their portfolio. A much easier way to make money is stick it to the taxpayers. Just like the banks and TARP and fannie and freddie. My mind this makes these people basically thieves. Nothing to do with “investment” no matter how you slice it.