North American railroads are building a crude pipeline on wheels because there aren't enough underground pipelines to carry booming production to refineries. The trend marks a revenue opportunity for railroads, which have doubled and tripled their crude car loads, as business for one of rail's key customer industries, coal, shrinks. Of course, chasing an oil boom is risky. Executives in any industry touched by the oil and gas boom, from rail to trucking to chemicals, must invest wisely.
