Norfolk Southern's earnings offer railroad chance to defend its strategy ahead of control vote

livemint.com:

a $600 million settlement over the disastrous February 2023 Ohio derailment there were few surprises in Wednesday’s numbers. Norfolk Southern confirmed the $53 million, or 23 cents per share, that it earned in the first quarter.

Without the settlement and some other one-time costs, the railroad said it would have made $2.39 per share while Wall Street was predicting earnings of $2.60 per share. The Atlanta-based railroad’s profit dropped from $466 million, or $2.04 per share, a year ago even though the railroad delivered 4% more shipments during the quarter.

“Our strategy is about balancing service, productivity and growth with safety at its core," Shaw said, and he promised to close the profit margin gap with other major railroads over the next couple of years though several analysts have expressed doubts about whether Norfolk Southern will be able to do that as all the other railroads keep improving. The railroad and Ancora Holdings disagree over whether Shaw ’s strategy of keeping more workers on hand during a downturn to be ready to handle the eventual rebound is the best way to run Norfolk Southern and whether he is the best man to lead the railroad.

Ancora's CEO candidate, Jim Barber, was formerly UPS’ chief operating officer and said keeping more workers on hand during slower times is wasteful. “This concept of Precision Scheduled Railroading is the exact same way that UPS has run its network for 60 or 70 years, which is you run it very efficiently, very effectively, and very balanced with as few assets as you can and leverage the efficiency of your employee base and the assets," Barber said in an interview with The Associated Press.