CSX Corporation

Good afternoon. My name is Emma and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q4 2021 CSX Corporation Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, press the star one. Thank you. Matthew Korn, you may begin your conference.

Matthew Korn Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. Joining me on today's call are Jim Foote, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Boone, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Jamie Wojciech, Executive Vice President of Operations, and Sean Pelkey, Acting Chief Financial Officer. In our presentation, you will find our forward-looking disclosure on slide two, followed by our non-GAAP disclosure on slide three. And with that, it's my pleasure to introduce our president, Chief Executive Officer Jim Flynn. Jim?

Thank you, Matthew, and thank you to everyone for joining us for today's call. First, I'm pleased to welcome Matthew to CSX and believe his investment research background, including coverage of many of our customers, will make him a great contributor to our team. And I wish Bill success in his new role as head of finance and treasuries. As we exit 2021, every CSX employee deserves recognition for their dedication to our customers in what has been another unbelievable year operating through the ongoing impacts of the pandemic and supply chain disruptions. As these challenges continue into the start of the new year, we continue to take the necessary steps to move more freight for our customers. We are putting the resources in place to deliver a high-quality service product and are working hard every day to make rail a more meaningful part of our customers' transportation solutions. Throughout this period, we have remained true to our core principles – operate safely, reliably and efficiently, and are committed to providing customers with additional capacity to help overcome the current challenges. These actions, combined with expected easing of supply chain disruptions, position CSX for growth. Turning to our presentation, let's start with slide four, which highlights our key financial results. We moved nearly 1.6 million carloads in the fourth quarter and generated over 3.4 billion in revenue. Operating income increased by 12% to $1.37 billion. The operating ratio increased 310 basis points to 60.1%, which includes approximately 250 basis points from the impact from quality carriers and 50 basis points from higher fuel prices. And earnings per share increased 27% to 42 cents a share. I'll now turn it over to Kevin, Jamie, and Sean for details.