Now that Warren Buffett likes the railroads, maybe you should consider shares in one, too, and that's one reason I'm reiterating my Buy rating for eastern U.S. railroad CSX Corporation (CSX), first recommended on May 1, 2009 at a price of $30.56. If you bought CSX in May, you're up about 56%.

Since the May Buy rating, institutional investors (IIs) have been incrementally adding to their CSX positions, on the company's likely 5-7% increase in revenue for FY2010. Volumes should increase and overall prices should firm, albeit with some softness in selected price categories.

Agricultural transportation company The Andersons Inc. (NASDAQ: ANDE) reported good numbers for first-quarter 2007 on May 2. The company is composed of five segments, three of which returned increases in revenues and profits. Overall, revenues were $409 million for the quarter, and net income was $9.2 million, which works out to diluted EPS of $0.51. These numbers are all improvements over 1Q 2006 figures. For the 43rd straight quarter, Andersons will pay a cash dividend, this time $0.0475 per share.

Grain and Ethanol is Andersons's largest business unit. On total revenues of $247 million, it earned operating income of $10.2 million, five times what it earned in 1Q 2006. Andersons was helped by a 40% average increase in grain prices, and by continuing demand for ethanol, of which Andersons sold more than $30 million in the quarter. The company just brought a second ethanol production plant into operation in May. So many companies are rushing into ethanol production that there may soon be excess production capacity, which will lead to price reductions and lowered earnings down the road.

Andersons specializes in the transportation of grain commodities by rail. Its Rail segment showed a small operating income for the quarter, $3 million, about half of what this unit earned in 1Q 2006. Total rail transport revenues were down due to a 5% decline in US rail traffic across the board. This unit sold fewer rail cars and had substantially higher maintenance costs for its wholly owned railcar fleet. 1Q 2006 was a particularly profitable quarter for this unit with the repair of so many rail cars damaged in Hurricane Katrina, so quarter-over-quarter comparisons are not completely accurate.

They're big, sometimes a mile long, and they belch smoke. Normally you think of locomotives as relics of an era that passed along with the cowboy on the open range and women in hoop dresses. Locomotives remain mainly in the realm of fascinated kids and hobbyists with a lot of room in their basements. Trains don't exactly get people as excited as hybrid cars or other new technologies, but they are an example of another niche GE is sliding into and getting some amazing results.

GE's transportation section just hit a major milestone, delivering their 1000th Evolution Series locomotive. The first Evolution locomotive rolled off the assembly only 17 months ago. It's a blistering pace. This particular engine chuffed its way to BNSF railway for delivery.