Hacker News Reader

Comment by mulmen | Hacker News Reader

Apparently GE sold off trains which seems like a pretty good business to own?

Out of all the business lines GE has sold off over the years (computers, appliances, financial services, lighthing, television, etc.), why trains?

GE was a slow-mo train wreck for years (pun intended).

Recently read "Lights out", about their problems in the last ~20 years, fascinating read, heartily recommended.

And yet Jack Welch somehow came to be looked upon as a management guru instead of someone who gutted the long-term viability of GE in favor of financialization.

Luckily I think history is doing its job in changing how Jack Welch's legacy will be remembered. I don't think students or upcoming businesspeople are really learning Welch's approach anymore.

Jack Welch has definitely fallen out of favor considering the results obviously illustrate his failures.

The business lines you offered as examples are low margin commodities or stuff GE really sucked at. Trains seems like a reasonable high margin line of business for a company that is actually good at industrial engineering.

They needed cash and it’s a profitable business so they sold it.

but is it high-margin, high-growth? The same thing is happening in Germany with Siemens for years... - just 10-20 years later than the US. Once they did everything (for real): car parts, control software, nuclear reactors, trains, solar cells, semiconductors, computers (even mainframes), medicine products, household appliances. Nowadays: BLOCKCHAIN. I guess the job of a chinese "we will rule the world"-planner is a lot easier through western greed, than it should be.

>but is it high-margin, high-growth?

They sold trains and bought into oil & gas exploration. If high growth is what they're aiming for I'm not sure they picked the right horse.

They still do almost all of those things. Look at their yearly report. They are also making huge profits from them.

If it was train lines including rail ownership I can see why they would want to drop out. Logistically that's a nightmare unless it's totally private.

Then again around here the rail lines are mostly owned by grain/grass farmer groups who ship product by rail and can load from their farm directly. Passenger lines that share the rails wait for those trains.

GE was a big player in the diesel-electric locomotive market, starting with the GE Universal series, then the Dash 7, Dash 8, Dash 9, and Evolution. The division was sold off at some point there, I think before the Evolution. Back in the earliest days the engines themselves were provided by companies such as Cummins but in the 60s GE started building its own prime movers.

As stated by another post, they built the trains but didn't own the track.

However, I'm not sure your conclusion about owning railroads is a nightmare is true. Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet's company) bought Norfolk Southern in 2007 and it's done fairly well since. My understanding is that these are relatively stable businesses because the barrier to entry is large enough to stifle competition.

It was the business that builds trains.

GE Transportation still exists, just in a different form. It's called Wabtec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabtec_Corporation

Just because it didn't retain the name "GE" doesn't mean the business is gone.

Yes it exists but GE doesn’t own it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com