WORCESTER – The Providence and Worcester Railroad Co. (AMEX: PWX) today posted a 2007 net loss of $652,000 or 14 cents per diluted common share, compared with the previous year’s net income of $1.0 million or 23 cents per diluted share.
Full-year operating revenue fell to $26.3 million, a decline of $2.3 million or 8.0 percent compared with 2006, as container-traffic volume fell 35.9 percent, P&W said.
“Among other factors, rate increases imposed by Western rail carriers in the United States resulted in steamship lines using ‘all-water’ routings to the East Coast for a larger portion of container traffic, thereby significantly reducing the volume of such traffic shipped cross-country by rail,” the regional railroad said in today’s report.
“This trend began during the second quarter of 2007 and the company is unable to predict if and when this trend will be reversed,” it added. “The largest single decline in conventional traffic revenues was in construction aggregates; revenue from shipment of this commodity decreased by $603,000 … from 2006.”
The company posted operating expenses last year of $27.86 million, a decline of $366,000 or 1.3 percent. “Because of the highly fixed nature of most of the Company’s operating expenses, such expenses do not increase or decrease proportionally with changes in operating revenues,” P&W noted.
Providence and Worcester Railroad Co. (AMEX: PWX) is a regional freight railroad operating in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. To learn more, visit www.pwrr.com.
