All eyes are Mamata Banerjee as she walks out on Friday to present the Rail Budget. While the taciturn politician may lack the swagger of her predecessor, the maverick Lalu Yadav (who goes into history for both turning around the ailing transporter in his tenure as railway minister and livening up the usually dry budget speeches with his characteristic humour) delivering the goods would be at the top of her agenda.

Will it be an all-out populist budget cutting fares with abandon — thanks again to the leeway provided by the profitability the railways earned over the last few years? Or will she concentrate on growth and take it from where her predecessor left off? Amid the growth talk, traders would love to punt on stocks of railway companies, which have in fact already started seeing in a rally in the past week in anticipation of increased orders from the budget.

Keep an eye on these stocks but keep also in mind that historically railway stocks run up on the railway budget day riding the momentum way but start losing steam soon after, correcting back to the original prices:

Stocks that have rallied:

BEML, up 20% in last 7 days

Kernex Microsystems, up 18%

Titagarh Wagons, up 10%

Texmaco , Kalindee Rail Nirman Engineers, Stone India, Hind Rectifiers, Simplex Casting are the other stocks.