Railroad News

Norfolk Southern Railway and the Ludlow Heritage Museum have signed a property lease agreement to preserve the NS-owned Ludlow Yard Store House building in Kentucky.

The agreement allows museum officials to renovate the building and repurpose it into its new headquarters. The building is historically significant because it’s the last remaining original structure in Ludlow used by the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway, which became part of Southern Railway and later Norfolk Southern.

Norfolk Southern Corp. today announced that Chairman and CEO James Squires plans to retire May 1, 2022, at which time Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Alan Shaw will become CEO.

As part of the company's planned succession process, the board of directors has elected Shaw to the role of president, effective immediately. The company's executive leadership team now reports to Shaw, NS officials said in a press release.

Norfolk Southern Corp. yesterday formally opened its new headquarters in Midtown Atlanta.

Guests who attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony included Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and civic and business leaders from across the city, NS officials said in a press release.

Norfolk Southern Railway last week filed a lawsuit that seeks to stop several labor unions from suing over the Class I’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Last week, NS, represented by Jones Day, field a petition in Chicago federal court claiming the unions’ objections to the vaccine requirement must be brought in arbitration and not in court, according to a Reuters report.

In the wake of recent record demand, Norfolk Southern Railway is making several changes and upgrades at its Landers intermodal terminal in Chicago, the Class I announced in a customer advisory.

To increase capacity, NS has reconfigured its footprint to boost stacked container capacity by 60%. Reach-stackers — with three in service and three more coming — are being added to increase lift capacity by 40% an hour and reduce driver dwell for pickups, the NS advisory stated.

Norfolk Southern Corp. shareholders yesterday elected 13 directors for one-year terms expiring in 2022.

The following individuals were elected to the board, according to preliminary results: Thomas Bell Jr., Mitchell Daniels Jr., Marcela Donadio, John Huffard Jr., Christopher Jones, Thomas Kelleher, Steven Leer, Michael Lockhart, Amy Miles, Claude Mongeau, Jennifer Scanlon, James Squires and John Thompson.

The environmental advantage of steel wheels over their 18-wheel counterparts is well-known. Our fuel-efficient locomotives haul a ton of freight more than 440 miles on a single gallon of fuel. That’s one of the reasons our customers can reduce their carbon emissions by up to 75 percent when they choose rail over truck.

Managing modes of transportation is one of the most powerful tools shippers can use to reduce their carbon footprint. Our customers are increasingly looking to us for help making their supply chain greener. More than 25% of our customers have established public goals for carbon reduction through the CDP’s global disclosure system.

Norfolk Southern Corp. yesterday closed a $500 million green-bond offering to fund investments to reduce the company’s carbon emissions and help customers reduce their supply-chain emissions.

NS is the first Class I in North America to issue green bonds, according to the railroad.

Norfolk Southern Corp. today reported first-quarter 2021 net income rose to $673 million, or $2.66 earnings per diluted share, compared with $381 million, or $1.47 per diluted share, for the year-earlier period.

Railway operating revenue of $2.6 billion increased 1%, or $14 million, compared with Q1 2020, driven primarily by a 3% increase in volume, NS officials said in a press release.