We are a freight rail transportation holding company. Our operations will be conducted
through two divisions:
railroad freight division, and
rail rolling stock leasing division.
Our railroad freight division plans to acquire strategic short line and regional
freight railroads, initially with revenues in the range of $2 million to $10
million annually. Post-acquisitions, we expect to grow the acquired railroads’
revenue and income base through innovative and efficient operations, combined
with strategic marketing initiatives. These expectations, however, are highly
anticipatory in nature, are subject to a number of assumptions and may not be
achievable by us. After an initial platform has been established, we expect
to seek to acquire railroads with much larger scale.
We expect that our rail rolling stock leasing division will pursue acquisitions
of existing rail car and locomotive leasing companies and/or directly purchase
rolling stock for lease to our freight railroads as well as third party rail
customers. Our rail rolling stock leasing division will seek to acquire rail-related
service companies to partner with our freight railroad operations. These rail-related
service companies include railroad equipment, maintenance, supply, parts, repair,
manufacturing and construction firms.
We also expect to provide management and advisory services to rail entities
in matters involving transportation and logistics, marketing, engineering, finance
and regulatory matters. These services will be provided through our Continental
Rail Holdings subsidiary.
Our goal will be to provide customers with a total suite of transportation
services focused on exceptional customer service, safe rail operations, tailored
transportation solutions, professional and reliable service, and strong partnerships
with the communities we serve.
Our rail freight division will seek to acquire short line and regional freight
railroad acquisitions in North America. Subject to the availability of sufficient
capital, we plan to make two to four acquisitions per year during our first
five years of operation.
Increase line density/carloads per mile: We expect that our marketing will
be conducted in four stages. First, every shipper on the line will be interviewed,
with the focus on bringing business back to the railroad that had been switched
to truck. We will seek to accomplish this through more competitive pricing and
better service levels, such as on-demand service as opposed to scheduled service.
Second, we will seek to increase the number of carloads currently shipped by
existing customers, again through better pricing and service, and incentive
pricing. Third, we will seek out new customers near the rail line, to which
we can provide a new siding, transloading facility or other transportation alternatives.
Lastly, we will work with industrial development representatives in the local
communities to have new shippers relocate on the rail line.
Improve customer service: Our customer service efforts will be headed by regional
sales personnel, and supplemented by the local railroad management. In addition,
we will require that each general manager meet periodically with every major
shipper to assess their need for the coming year as part of the budget process.
Finally, we expect to provide rail service on demand, rather than scheduled
service which we believe will enable us to augment our rail services to meet
individual customer needs, thereby gaining a competitive advantage over Class
I railroads that typically employ a rigid scheduled service that may be less
convenient to the customer and may fail to meet changing customer demands.
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