Infrastructure Stocks: Railroads Above Their Usual Range, Materials and Water Below

Open the Infrastructure theme to see the 17 companies behind roads, rail and water in the US: construction materials producers, contractors and engineers, an equipment renter, three freight railroads, and five water companies, from pipe and valve makers to a regulated utility. We compare each with its own five-year valuation history, then group them into four layers. PAVE, the Global X U.S. Infrastructure Development ETF, is the benchmark.

Four layers, two directions

Infrastructure layer	Median member EV/Sales percentile	Ranked / members
Railroads	80th	3 / 3
Builders	74th	4 / 5
Water	27th	5 / 5
Materials	12th	3 / 4

These are medians of each member's percentile against its own weekly readings over the last five years, not the percentile of an industry average. EV/Sales divides enterprise value (market value plus net debt) by trailing twelve-month revenue. We start with it because debt differs widely across railroads, utilities and consultants, and because it ranks more of this group than EV/EBITDA.

The companies at each end

Company	EV/Sales	Five-year percentile	P/E percentile
WTS	4.4x	93rd	87th
URI	4.7x	93rd	88th
CSX	7.3x	86th	88th
UNP	7.6x	80th	74th
NSC	6.8x	79th	82nd
STRL	3.2x	73rd	65th
VMC	4.7x	42nd	2nd
AWK	8.2x	25th	47th
EXP	3.0x	12th	28th
CRH	1.9x	4th	3rd
XYL	3.0x	4th	3rd

The railroads sit above their usual ranges on both sales and earnings, and United Rentals sits higher still on sales. All four closed their latest week within 6% of their highest weekly close of the past year. Union Pacific announced a deal to buy Norfolk Southern in July 2025, and the merger is still before the Surface Transportation Board.

Sterling Infrastructure fell instead. Its latest weekly close was 60% below its high of the past year, yet its EV/Sales still ranked at the 73rd percentile. Trailing revenue rose 61% from a year earlier, and its five-year range includes years when the market paid less than 1x sales for it.

Sales and earnings disagree in materials

Vulcan Materials sat at the 42nd percentile on EV/Sales and the 2nd on P/E. Trailing revenue was up 7% from a year earlier and trailing earnings per share 18%, so earnings grew faster than sales. The market pays about its usual amount per dollar of Vulcan's sales, and less than usual per dollar of its recent profit. Whether those margins last is the question; the EV/Sales and EV/EBITDA guide explains the arithmetic.

Xylem, which sells pumps, meters and treatment equipment, sat at the 4th percentile on EV/Sales and the 3rd on P/E. American Water Works, a regulated utility, sat at the 25th on sales and the 47th on earnings. Watts Water, which sells valves and water quality products, sat at the 93rd on sales. Same layer, different businesses.

Who pays for the work

The 2021 infrastructure law authorized federal highway and transit programs through September 30, 2026. H.R. 6500, signed September 2, extended them to December 11, 2026 without setting funding for later years. Materials producers and contractors depend on state road programs that plan years ahead, so the length of the next bill matters as well as its size.

Work already funded continues. The Census Bureau's October 1 release put August 2026 public highway and street construction at $150.6 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, 4.4% above August 2025. Public water supply construction ran at $35.5 billion (up 1.7%) and sewage and waste disposal at $52.5 billion (up 1.3%) (Census release CB26-158, October 1, 2026). These are preliminary estimates of work put in place, so they lag new contracts.

The railroads have their own calendar. Comments on Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern's revised merger application are due November 18, 2026, and the Surface Transportation Board has not set a decision date (STB).

Missing ranks stay missing

Fifteen of the 17 members have a counted EV/Sales rank. Martin Marietta and AECOM were under data review and stay visible without counting toward a layer median. CRH ranks against history since November 2024, and Jacobs against 75 weeks after we cut the years affected by its 2024 separation; the spin-off and new-listing guide explains why we cut those histories.

Where to go next

The infrastructure screen lists the same companies with a switch for each measure. How to value infrastructure stocks covers which multiple fits a quarry, a railroad, a contractor and a water utility. Searching for infrastructure stocks for AI? Chips and data centers are on AI Infrastructure, and power and grid equipment on AI Power.

Numbers are from StockResearch's SEC-filings and weekly-price dataset read Oct 23, 2026, with the latest weekly observation beginning Oct 19. Price comparisons use weekly closes. Multiples and percentiles are rounded for display. The Infrastructure member table shows current readings. This is research, not investment advice.