The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that for the past three decades, the Toronto Stock Exchange has consistently been dominated by two railway companies. The Globe's Tim Shufelt writes that the Canadian duopoly, consisting of CN Rail and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, sports a mighty average annual return of 15.5 per cent, which is best in class by a decent margin. An investment of $1,000 parked in those two stocks would have turned into more than $75,000 over that 30-year period. Railways have proven capable of thriving across all manner of economic and geopolitical conditions. "These are two of the best infrastructure assets in the world," said Barry Schwartz, chief investment officer at Baskin Wealth. "People should probably own fewer banks and more rails, and just leave them in your portfolio forever." A CIBC report said, "There are no realistic, long-term, cost-competitive alternatives to shipping goods and commodities by rail, and there are no new railway networks being built." It is the mother of all barriers to entry. Years of consolidation changed the North American rail industry's profile, enough that by 2010, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owned Burlington Northern Santa Fe outright.