Real Estate
The key asset to every railroad is the property it owns or controls over which the railroad runs. Given the nature of a railroad, that ownership is, relative to most people's experience of land ownership, very narrow and very long!
Because of that nature, there are many places where the railroad "interacts" with other entities, be they roads, pipelines, wires, or whatever.
This section of the web site should enlighten you on some of those issues...
A Santa Maria Valley Railroad train departs the Guadalupe interchange, hauling cars to various customers in the valley.