Some of the early books about investing which were read including owning railway bonds. Books published around the 1900’s included topics of railway bonds and different dealers specialized in the bonds. The companies that being discussed, many of them now do not exist except in Railway Museums. At the present time, the lines have been reorganized, were involved with mergers, nationalized, or discontinued. The Railway Game was written by J Lakasiewicz, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1976. It focuses on Canadian railways, but the names of the railway lines could easily be exchanged to any European and the United States railway. The steam engine was invented and railways would open up the country. In every country, the politicians of the day, wanted to more than encourage railways to be in their area. Grants either from the Federal Government, State Government or Municipal Governments and usually a combination of all three were offered. The Federal Government because the railways connect one end of the country to the other, which is good for the government of the day, offered government guarantees of the railway bonds. The bonds were sold in London and New York, because for investors there was the government guarantee and that is where investment dollars were to be found. In the late 1800’s many times land grants were given to the railway companies which meant the ones that survived had many operations – timber, minerals or natural resources, hotels, etc. For a time, the railway companies were the immigration department, encouraging people to come to North America for free or discounted land in the west. In the 1920’s and 30’s all railways were rationalized and some lines discontinued. One railway in the book if you drew on a map the line should be 84 miles, the railway due to politicians was 148 miles long with most of it having few paying customers. That particular  railway has since been discontinued for roads and trucks.

Linking to dividend paying stocks,  the railways were the infrastructure of the country and politicians were offering public money to build the railroads. In many instances they continued to offer public money to operate the railroads when the lines were not making money. The railway companies would have been wrong not to accept the money. When politicians offer money, and it fits into the plans of the company, money should be accepted whether it is taxpayer or not. In many parts of the world, we somehow forgot most of the infrastructure was paid by taxpayers, just not always operated by taxpayers.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions