"Like many of the stories we recount in this book, Railtex leans toward the mundane—after all, short-haulrailroading is not exactly the newest or most exciting business venture one could get into. The Railtex story starts in 1977, when Bruce Flohr put 50,000 US dollars of his own money together with 50,000 US dollars from investors to launch a railcar-leasing firm in San Antonio, Texas.
Railcar leasing turned out not to be a particularly great idea: five years later, the business was still not profitable and was struggling to stay afloat. The situation forced Flohr and his team to start doing consultancy projects with small railroads as a way of pulling in some extra cash."