NS vs. CSX

[vsmith]

No comment

Out here we only get that Yellow brand or that Orange brand.

[alstom]

Well--I guess NS is better "business" wise, but CSX is still my tops!!

[Anonymous]

I have to agree with Eric. Having lived in and around Macon, Columbus and Marietta Georgia as well as here in the NC Piedmont, NS does seem to be going places in the right direction. PL

[Anonymous]

I've got both NS and CSX running around fairly close by. NS is hiring in the neighborhood... and the local trainmaster said he's looking at major expansion of the number of trains he has going through.

Railfan preferance: I like the present day CSX- more colorful than the Henry Ford I-like-any-color-so-long-as-it's-black NS style. Would much prefer the old LNER Southern colors of green and white. But hey, railroads don't do paint schemes based on railfan preference... otherwise there would still be cigar bands and silver running out west.

Both railroads look like they are pretty busy- which means profits of some kind. How they use those profits will tell the tale, I think.

Have spoken at length with employees on both roads- both roads are equally friendly to railfans with cameras in this neck of the woods.

Safety issues: NS is very proud of their 16th Harriman Award, and rightly so. This despite some headline making wrecks over the past year. Not sure why CSX seems to have problems with sun kinks in their rails... it probably has to do more with public perception than actuality.

Both are hard working railroads and a joy to watch and film in this part of the South... but if pushed, local loyalty would have to take NS.

Erik

[daveklepper]

NS seems to handle Virginia Express and Amtrak passenger trains with a better on time performance too.

[Train Guy 3]

QUOTE: Originally posted by icmr

Thanks for all of the replies. There is one thing that I dont think anyone has talked about and that is safety. NS is far better than Railroad and especially CSX I mean come on NS has won 16 straight gold awards for safety.

ICMR

I must say it is quite impressive for NS to have won the Gold Harriman Award for Safety. It's good for a business like railroad to have a good safety record.

I think railroads need to help pu***he Opperation Lifesaver program a little more, because it seems to me that motorists are getting stupider. I think its a good idea what NS and the NC Trasportation Department started with the cameras in the locomotives.

[Anonymous]

icmr - you're first. The NS is better in safety because they began a formal, meaningful Safety Program way back in 1912, when it was only a word in the dictionary to the C&O people.

smalling - I was the first N&W operating supervisor to be sent to the Wabash after the 1964 merger, and those Wabash guys thought they were the only people on the face of the earth who knew how to railroad. They believed their own press clippings, like the PRR people. They survived in a highly competitive market (mainly by violating speed limits), and thought that made them top operators, and they thought N&W made money hauling coal downhill.

They couldn't wait to get down on the old N&W and show those hickabillies how railroadin' oughta be done. Well, one of their guys, an ex-PRR empty suit named Pevler, was president after the merger, and he took some of the WAB guys down east with him.

The silence was deafening. Nothing changed. They did have sense enough to realize where the REAL money was being made, and not to mess with it (PRR had realized it, too, and didn't exercise the control their stock holding entitled them to to the extent of messing with N&W's operations, perhaps the wisest thing they ever did). They found out that N&W made its money hauling its eastbound coal over three mountains (two more than C&O had to face), and that there were some 250 classifications of tidewater coal to deal with - coal is not just coal, as they had thought. N&W had made some of its billions over the years selling coal blended to customers' specifications at the ship, and were still doing it until the bottom dropped out of the export market.

When the Southern boys took over in 1982 they belittled the N&W for the way it handled its coal; they thought the only way was to haul unit trains. Unit trains are fine if you have power plants that can take 100 cars four times a week, but N&W didn't have that kind of coal business. The kind they did have had been immensely profitable, but the SR folks overlooked that little detail.

(I asked an old friend, a Southern guy, how the merged railroad was doing a couple of years after the merger. He replied that it was awful - those N&W guys didn't know diddly; if it wasn't for the billion dollars they had in the bank earning money that they'd be in trouble. I asked him who put that billion dollars in the bank, knowing that it surely wasn't the Southern. He didn't reply . . .)

Old Timer

[icmr]

Thanks for all of the replies. There is one thing that I dont think anyone has talked about and that is safety. NS is far better than any Railroad and especially CSX I mean come on NS has won 16 straight gold awards for safety.

ICMR

[Anonymous]

Personally I like CSX and NS!! I favor NS a little more because they are what comes through Fairfield. But I think they're both great. They've both had problems in the past, but they seem to be doing better.They both seem to have good leadership. David Goode seems to be keeping Norfolk Southern in goode financial shape, and Michael Ward seems to be trying to make CSX a better railroad for it's employees and customers. The eastern U.S. needs both of them to provide good competition. Personally I miss Conrail, sometimes I wi***hey were still around, but Conrail needed to go away in order for my other two favorite railroads to continue to grow and prosper.

[Anonymous]

Note to Old Timer: Is my face red! I think my mistake was in using the term "investment community" as a metaphor for some of the ignorant things I heard from people on other lines (and occasionally the N&W itself) while I was young.

Nothing beats opinion like fact. I was wrong, and I apologize.

Got some readin' to do, it seems....[*^_^*]

[Anonymous]

NS always.

[tmcc man]

i like them both, and this is a hard decision, and i see both of them every once in a while.

[mackb4]

Hey I'm a railroader,we like to talk/type.I could have listed all my uncle's and cousin's railroad facts,but my fingers got tired.Valleyline I like to call those ugly primed engines "plain wrappers".The NS gets them cheaper from GE like that.I've had those in power moves with big plastic bags over the stack,and tags on the isolation/start switch stating not to fire up the engine because there's no oil in it from the build shop.The NS still knows how to save a penny like the N&W used to.

[Valleyline]

No question about it.....NS has come out on top after the Conrail split-up fiasco. Now... if they would only paint those engines covered with OD primer!

[ValleyX]

At Christmastime, don't your parents have a hard time cleaning up all of that coal dust after the festivities are over? It's probably several inches thick after all of THAT conversation.[;)]

[mackb4]

My Dad retired from the CSX three years ago.I'm on my 15th year with the NS.My Grandad worked for the Virginian(NS) until 1922,then the Southern(NS) till 1925,and passed away working for the C&O(CSX) in 1965.My Great Granddad worked on the Virginian(NS) till 1922,then retired on the Seaboard(CSX).My Mother's Granddad retired from the C&O(CSX) in the early 60's,and her Dad worked for the C&O(CSX),got layed off,then the Seaboard(CSX),got called back for a life time job on the C&O(CSX),worked one day then got a job termination notice the next day.So to answer the question,the ole Chessie(CSX) feed my face when I was a kid,and the NS does my kids,and mine.Both railroads have their good and bad points.But the NS right now is doing much better money wise than the CSX.On the Division I work ( Poca) we are going to have major work on our tunnels and bridges for double stack trains.I think the CSX does a better job in maintaining their engines,but the NS does an excellent job on track maintainace.All railroads in my opinon will see a boom in business with the current oil prices.So railroads should be in good shape for a long time.But keep an eye on what your state rep's in Washington do to Amtrack.They would like to send the debt back to the railroads but the money would drain any profit.But believe me, there is some good conversations during holiday's at Dad's house !

[Anonymous]

Quoth smalling_60626:

"I've long thought that the old N&W was unfairly judged because of a condescending investment community that thought the line consisted of a bunch of hillbillies running coal mallets at 10 mph. This despite the acquisitions of the 1960s and the line's innovation--being an early champion of auto racks, for example."

What investment community are you talking about? The old N&W was ace-high with the Wall Street investment community, which is the one that counts. It never missed a common stock dividend from its beginning of dividend payments in 1901 until the 1982 merger, including every year during the Great Depression. In February, 1934, it was the highest priced stock on the NYSE. When I joined the RR in 1959 the common stock dividend was $6.50 per share, again, the highest among NYSE stocks of ALL categories, not just transportation.

The Pennsy owned 39% of N&W's common stock from 1901 until divestiture in 1964, and N&W made enough money to pay enough dividends so that the PRR collected $406,676,041.98, total. In other words, N&W subsidized PRR's standing as "Standard Railroad of the World" to the tune of 40% of a BILLION dollars.

I don't know where you got your information, but all the N&W stockholders annual reports are available on a CDROM from the N&WHS website. You can get it and add up the dividends for yourself. I did.

Old Timer

[Anonymous]

Well, financially in a mess, as were most American RR's. You were right to upbraid me, though, as it has always at least seemed to me that the N&W/Southern = NS kept their pikes in good shape, regardless of last quarter's earnings.

[ValleyX]

Road was a mess 20 years ago? Please explain that. I don't remember it being a mess other than the time post June 1, 1999, and that mess seems to be (mostly) fixed.

[Anonymous]

I've long thought that the old N&W was unfairly judged because of a condescending investment community that thought the line consisted of a bunch of hillbillies running coal mallets at 10 mph. This despite the acquisitions of the 1960s and the line's innovation--being an early champion of auto racks, for example.

Yes, the road was a mess 20 years ago. But the drive to excellence came from somewhere.

[altoonafn]

NS is my favorite. They have more interesting operations than CSX.

[Anonymous]

Norfolk Southern ALL the way ! They have darn good lokking locomotives.

[icmr]

Thanks for all of the replies. I like NS since I live by their main line.

[Anonymous]

This is a easy choice for me. NS all the way. CSX is nice, but does not capture the majestic feeling of NS. The only thing I like about CSX is that it has wides of unit power, and roads, as it pass through on the NYS&W railway tracks, I see many CSX trains on the Susquehanna, as it goes right through my small town of Vernon. As my fallen flag railroad, it has to be the Pennsylvania Railroad.

[Anonymous]

On paper NS is at the moment superior, however it was not so in the 80's or early 90's.

I am partial to NS since I grew up near a Southern RR branch, however I do enjoy railfanning both........

[Anonymous]

waltersrails -

A long time ago it was said that everybody had two favorite railroads - the B&O and one other.

Old Timer

[waltersrails]

I love NS but also love CSX because of them owning B&O.

[ValleyX]

Now, there's an answer worth reading, Old Timer, and a lot of it seems to have carried through to this very day. Funny how that works out, isn't it.

[Anonymous]

CSX isn't even in the hunt with NS, just as C&O was never in the hunt with N&W.

In an era where a railroad's prosperity was judged at least partly on how much coal business it carried, C&O hauled more coal than N&W; on the west end of the railroad it took its coal all the way to Lake Erie at Toledo, and N&W had to give its coal, and part of the revenue, to connections at Columbus. Until it merged with Pere Marquette, C&O didn't have any more non-coal-involved mileage than did N&W, nor more passenger service to support. C&O didn't have N&W's grades nor N&W's curvature, against getting its coal to market. C&O had roundhouses full of the most fashionable locomotives ever devised by the mind of man - 90 big 2-8-4s, 40 2-10-4s, 60 2-6-6-6s, the world's heaviest 4-6-4s, and the Greenbrier 4-8-4s; while N&W just had a bunch of old obsolete (the smart guys said) compound 2-8-8-2s, 43 2-6-6-4s that the intelligentsia said were much inferior to the 2-6-6-6s, and some short-legged 4-8-4s.

Yet C&O never made the money that N&W did, as a function of carrying gross income over to net.

The bottom line is where it counts . . .

Old Timer

[Anonymous]

Which one(s) then do you like?