Hope you didn't make it too big of a deal-- was listed below talk and has already lost 4% on opening day. I am curious as to what you may see differently than I do regarding RailAmerica that would make this a good investment. I am not a profressional (or even amateur) investor, nor do I have any sort of interest in RailAmerica (stock, former employment, etc.), but rather only general observation from years of following the shortline industry.

I see a highly leveraged company (60% of its worth is debt) with no growth prospect on the horizon. If RA does anything, it needs to shrink, and considerably. Even back to the Marino days, RA was taking on huge amounts of debt in a seemingly endless period of rapid expansion. Rather than single line acquisitions, they took on other smaller holding companies, and in the process, acquired whatever lines those companies had in their portfolios. They have cast off a couple of lines (such as the Virginia Southern), but are still stuck with some underperformers that don't bring a lot of value to the books.

Being bought out by a hedge fund has brought nothing good that I've seen so far, and it looks like the investment community is not putting much faith in their future prospects as Fortress seeks to raise funding. There really isn't that much that can be recapitalized, since RA sold the vast majority of their power to LLPX years ago and leased it back. I will give Fortress some credit, in that they could not have predicted that the economy was going to seriously tank right about the time they decided to venture into the railroad business, and that is hard on anyone's business plan. But, the bottom line as I see it is that the only thing they really have on the horizon is a right-sizing of the company. The other option is the quick cash method of selling some of their best properties, which could bring needing funding but also leaves them without the long term prospect of having the returns from that valuable property in their portfolio.

Hope your investment will eventually provide some return-- sorry it's not off to a great start.

Mike Derrick
Alexandria, VA