FORT WORTH, Texas — Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., the No. 2 U.S. railroad, on Tuesday said quarterly earnings declined about 15 percent as disappointing harvests and the West Coast ports closure dragged on shipments, reported Reuters.
The Fort Worth, Texas, freight hauler with lines criss-crossing the western United States said third-quarter profit was $192 million, or 51 cents a share, down from $225 million, or 58 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding unusual items, third-quarter 2001 earnings per share totaled 56 cents.
Wall Street analysts had expected Burlington to earn between 50 cents and 53 cents a share in the quarter, with a mean forecast of 51 cents, according to a survey of 10 analysts by Thomson First Call.
Operating revenues slid to $2.31 billion from $2.34 billion the year before.
Shares of Burlington closed at $26.39, up 31 cents, or 1.2 percent, on Monday. The stock has lost about 7.5 percent so far in 2002, worse than the 1.6 percent drop in the Dow Jones U.S. Railroads Index but better than a 23 percent decline in the overall market.