Norfolk Southern is a major freight railroad that operates across the eastern United States, moving goods by rail through a network spanning 19,200 miles of track in 22 states. Traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NSC, the company is one of the handful of “Class I” railroads in North America, a designation for the largest freight rail carriers by revenue. In 2025, Norfolk Southern reported $12.2 billion in railway operating revenues.
What Norfolk Southern Hauls
Norfolk Southern’s business breaks down into three main freight segments: merchandise, intermodal, and coal.
- Merchandise is the broadest category, covering industrial goods like chemicals, metals, construction materials, automotive products, agricultural commodities, paper, and forest products. These shipments typically move in individual railcars or groups of cars rather than full trainloads.
- Intermodal refers to shipping containers and truck trailers that transfer between rail, ship, and truck. If you’ve seen a freight train carrying stacked containers with retail brand logos on them, that’s intermodal traffic. This segment connects ports and distribution centers across the rail network.
- Coal includes coal, coke (a byproduct of oil refining), and iron ore. While coal’s share of railroad revenue has declined over the years as utilities shift to other energy sources, it remains a meaningful part of Norfolk Southern’s business, particularly in Appalachian mining regions.
Where the Network Reaches
Norfolk Southern’s rail lines stretch from the Southeast through the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and into parts of the Northeast. The network connects major port cities, manufacturing hubs, and agricultural regions east of the Mississippi River. The company describes its franchise as serving more than half of the U.S. population and manufacturing base, which makes sense given the population density of the eastern states it covers.
Railroads like Norfolk Southern don’t just move freight on their own tracks. They interchange traffic with other railroads at connection points, meaning a shipment can originate on Norfolk Southern’s lines and travel across the country via partner carriers. This “connecting carrier” system lets shippers reach destinations well beyond any single railroad’s footprint.
Financial Scale
Norfolk Southern’s $12.2 billion in 2025 revenue was a modest increase over 2024. Income from railway operations hit $4.4 billion that year, up 7% from the prior year. These figures put Norfolk Southern among the largest transportation companies in the country, though it trails the two biggest North American railroads (BNSF and Union Pacific) in total revenue.
Railroad economics differ from trucking in important ways. Trains are far more fuel-efficient per ton-mile than trucks, which gives railroads a cost advantage on long-haul, heavy freight. However, rail requires massive capital spending on track, locomotives, and railcars. Norfolk Southern reinvests billions annually to maintain and upgrade its infrastructure.
The East Palestine Derailment and Safety Changes
Norfolk Southern became a household name in February 2023 when one of its freight trains derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, spilling hazardous chemicals and forcing a controlled burn of vinyl chloride that sent a toxic plume over the town. The incident drew intense public scrutiny, congressional hearings, and federal investigations.
In response, the company launched what it calls a Six-Point Safety Plan. The most concrete changes include installing 187 additional hot bearing detectors along its network, reducing the average distance between these sensors to roughly 12 miles. Hot bearings (overheating wheel assemblies) were identified as a factor in the East Palestine crash. The company also quadrupled its use of acoustic bearing detectors, which listen for bearing defects rather than measuring heat alone.
Norfolk Southern deployed Digital Train Inspection Portals that use high-resolution cameras and machine vision to scan passing trains for mechanical problems. It partnered with RapidSOS, a platform that gives more than 16,000 emergency response agencies real-time access to train locations, cargo manifests, and emergency protocols. The company also broke ground on a $25 million first responder training center in East Palestine itself.
On the regulatory side, Norfolk Southern became the first Class I railroad to join the Federal Railroad Administration’s Confidential Close Call Reporting System, which lets employees report near-miss safety incidents without fear of discipline. The company also brought in outside safety consultants to conduct an independent review and build a multi-year improvement roadmap. Norfolk Southern has publicly advocated for faster federal phaseout timelines on older DOT-111 tank cars, which are considered less crashworthy than newer designs.
Corporate Strategy
Norfolk Southern’s current management frames the company’s direction around three priorities: service reliability, operational productivity, and growth. The service piece centers on making rail dependable enough that shippers choose it over trucking for their long-term supply chains. Productivity means running a faster, more fluid network with fewer bottlenecks, which simultaneously improves service and lowers costs per unit. Growth focuses on capturing freight in expanding economic sectors, particularly in the Southeast, where population and manufacturing have been increasing.
Safety sits underneath all three as a stated foundation. Following the reputational damage from East Palestine, the company has positioned safety investment as central to its identity rather than treating it as a compliance checkbox. Whether that shift proves lasting will depend on sustained spending and operational discipline over the coming years.
How Norfolk Southern Fits the Broader Rail Industry
The U.S. freight rail industry is dominated by a small number of Class I railroads, each controlling a regional territory. Norfolk Southern and its primary eastern competitor, CSX, split most of the rail traffic east of the Mississippi. BNSF and Union Pacific dominate the western half. Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City round out the Class I group with networks that cross the U.S.-Canada border.
For everyday consumers, Norfolk Southern’s operations are mostly invisible. You won’t ship a package through them. But the goods on store shelves, the cars at dealerships, the building materials at construction sites, and the fuel at power plants all move in part because of freight railroads like Norfolk Southern. The company sits at a critical layer of the supply chain, connecting raw materials to manufacturers and finished products to markets across the eastern half of the country.