Out Fox The $treet

After a great 2012 in the pipeline business, Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (PAA) completed a transaction to increase the focus on rail transportation growth. The company finalized a $500M deal to acquire several loading facilities for railroads though the existing enterprise value of nearly $22B limits the impact of this rail move. Plains All American engages in the transportation, storage, terminalling, and marketing of crude oil, refined products, and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) products in the United States and Canada. The move highlights the transformational currents under cutting the pipeline business. As crude oil has been unable to transverse the current pipeline system to reach the refineries on the coasts, the railroads have stepped up with more direct routes that bypass the congested Cushing, OK oil hub. Not only is it a boon to railroads struggling with weak coal shipments, but exploration and refinery companies are access to better pricing than currently available. R...

FreightCar America (RAIL) had blowout earnings for Q4'11 reported this morning. Unfortunately this isn't a stock that I follow, but anybody watching the backlog numbers probably isn't that surprised. The stock has soared over 22% on the news. RAIL reported earnings of $.71 that easily smashed the $.18 estimate. Most astonishing were the rail car deliveries and backlog growth compared to last year and even last quarter. Deliveries Q4'11 - 2,489 units Q3'11 - 1,515 units Q4'10 -    694 units Backlog Q4'11 - 8,303 units Q3'11 - 6,311 units Q4'10 - 2,054 units It appears that most of the growth is related to a eastern coal car replacement cycle. Demand evidently jumped as more eastern coal is being shipped internationally. Getting that coal to ports evidently takes more railcars or just newer railcars. The big problem is that coal demand has slowed making the replacement cycle a big question especially to jump into a stock up 20%.  ...