NS vs. CSX

[Anonymous]

NS always.

[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]

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.

[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]

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

[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.

[daveklepper]

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

[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

[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

[alstom]

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

[vsmith]

No comment

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

[CSXrules4eva]

alstom I agree with you 110 percent!!!!!! In my book CSX is number one The only thing I don' t like about CSX is it's under maintained track.

NS Railfan if you want to see some hard core NS action come on over to PA, there is tons of it more NS action over here than CSX, that I know of. Ever since Conrail was split betwwen CSX (40 something) and NS (58 percent) , NS has taken over all of PRR's lines, and as you know PA had LOTS of PRR lines. Go Figure!! lol

[espeefoamer]

I am a Pennsy fan,and I don't like what NS did to the PRR main line between Pittsburgh and Chicago[:(!]!

[Anonymous]

Though I am more of a TP&W and ATSF fan, of the teo, CSX and NS I would have to choose NS, as they also ran threw my old childhood home. I always liked that horse. Plus when they rolled into town they looked big and heavy.

[ValleyX]

Espeefoamer, have you checked out the map to see why things are the way they are? Since CSX got the Big Four from Cleveland to St. Louis and NS can run only eight trains a day between Bucyrus and Crestline, and all the traffic between Chicago and Pittsburgh runs via Toledo and Cleveland, it couldn't be any other way.

Oh, and there's that little thing of CONRAIL (remember them) downgrading the PRR west of Crestline, abandoning the Panhandle lines between PIttsburgh and Chicago via Columbus, but you want to blame NS. Hmmmm.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ValleyX

Espeefoamer, have you checked out the map to see why things are the way they are? Since CSX got the Big Four from Cleveland to St. Louis and NS can run only eight trains a day between Bucyrus and Crestline, and all the traffic between Chicago and Pittsburgh runs via Toledo and Cleveland, it couldn't be any other way.

Oh, and there's that little thing of CONRAIL (remember them) downgrading the PRR west of Crestline, abandoning the Panhandle lines between PIttsburgh and Chicago via Columbus, but you want to blame NS. Hmmmm.

The grand desire falls yet again to the logic of the VAlleyX. Well said sir. PL

[Anonymous]

My interest in trains is mostly photographic so CSX is the winner. The ubiquitous black and white of NS is boring. CSX displays a good variety of colorful paint schemes on any given day. Best reason to railfan NS: they're running lots of Union Pacific and BNSF locos along with Conrail engines that so far have escaped the paint shop.

[alstom]

Let me explain myself. I mean that NS has too many locomotives with the "Dash." What I mean by Dash is Dash 8, Dash 9, you don't see too many Dash 7s(C30-7s) on NS too much anymore.

Where CSX has better paint schemes, better foreign and leased power and better auto service. Have you ever noticed how NS barely runs auto trains??

So my pick is CSX!! But like "Cris Helt" said, NS does have some rare units like the B32-8, GP38AC and C41-8Ws.

Richard

P.S.)-my favorite used to be NS....but I began to like CSX, since it doesn't have the same power over and over.....

[Anonymous]

Guilford Rocks!!!!!! [8D]

[icmr]

alstom,
I need you to get your facts straight.

Norfolk Southern is the largest rail shipper of automotive products in North America and 13 of the last 20 assembly plants to locate in the eastern United States have chosen Norfolk Southern to be their serving carrier. NS serves 36 U.S. auto assembly plants, 38 auto distribution terminals, 4 Just-In-Time (JIT) Rail Centers, and 4 vehicle mixing centers strategically positioned across its network.

Serving shippers and receivers of finished vehicles and parts, including:
• BMW
• DaimlerChrysler
• Ford
• General Motors
• Honda
• Izuzu
• Jaguar
• Land Rover
• Mazda
• Mercedes-Benz
• Mitsubishi
• Nissan
• Saab
• Subaru
• Suzuki
• Toyota
• Volkswagen


In order to meet shipping requirements, Norfolk Southern currently manages one of the largest and most updated fleets of automotive rail equipment in the country. Norfolk Southern is dedicated to providing its customers with the safest, most up to date and efficient fleet of automotive rail equipment in North America . Norfolk Southern is striving to continually improve upon boxcar technology to maintain this efficient fleet, which creates valuable savings for manufacturers as their cargo safely moves from origin to destination on time.


I was also wondering if you spend a lot of time railfanning NS because if you do you must not go to a line that has a lot of auto trains on it.

ICMR

[Anonymous]

Yes, and the old N&W was pushing for automotive parts shipments and automotive rack cars 'way back in the Sixties. But to be fair, not every route gets an abundance of every kind of train. It's easy to infer something not statistically true by looking on one's home line as representative of all service.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, icmr is right Alstom, NS and CSX both run a lot of auto trains. It is possible though that the NS tracks where you live might not see a lot of auto trains though. And, NS doesn't have all Dash 8s or 9s, here lately I've seen quite a few SD units, SD60, SD70, even an SD40-2 High nose, etc. etc. But you are partly correct, CSX does run quite a few auto trains, at Effingham Illinois, they run a lot of auto trains on the former Conrail tracks. And "CSXrules4eva", you said CSX got 40 something of CR, it was 42% of CR stock and NS 58%. The CR split occurred on June 1, 1999 (DAY ONE), and financial control of CR took place August 22, 1998.

[icmr]

But lets not forget that NS is the largest auto carrier in North America.

ICMR

[icmr]

Thanks for all of the replies. There is some really good info here.

ICMR

[waltersrails]

NS is the best but CSX has the B&O.

[ValleyX]

Well, yeah they do, except for the parts they sold off or ripped up.

[markn]

NS-because they are our hometown heros

[Anonymous]

Norfolk Southern definitely is my favorite and in my opinion the best railroad ever on face of the earth!!!!!! Love that black and white.
CSX sucks! CSX=Chicken S**T EXpress
Although I am happy about one thing CSX did, but they had to have NS's help, and it was buying Conrail. Conrail sucks even more than CSX does, and CSX sucks a whole lot.
CR=Crappy Railroad.
NORFOLK SOUTHERN RULES!!!!!!!! Always have and always will!!
That black and white paint sure is better looking than that crappy paint CSX uses to try to show off with all that yellow, blue, and gray. CSX can't even make up there mind as far as what scheme to paint there engines. NS has only had one paint scheme until just recently when they're painting new and newly acquired engines in the "Horsehead" scheme, but at least it is still black and white. CSX has had god knows how many paint schemes.

[Anonymous]

Don't hold back, gelvr1. Let it all out . . .

Old Timer

[Anonymous]

My favorite railroad company of today is the BNSF, UP comes in a close second, my favorite railroad company of all time would either be BN, ATSF, SP or MP.

QUOTE: Originally posted by icmr

I was just wondering how many people like CSX and how many like NS.