CSX Corporation

All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers have marked, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would like to turn the conference over to Matthew Korn, head of investor relations and strategy. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Colby. Good afternoon, everyone. We're very pleased to have you join our third quarter earnings call. Joining me from the CSX leadership team are Steve Angel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Corey, EVP and Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Boone, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer, and Sean Pelkey, EVP and Chief Financial Officer. In the presentation that accompanies this call, which is available on our website, you will find slides with our forward-looking and non-GAAP disclosures. We encourage you to review them. With that, I'm very happy to turn the call over to Mr. Steve Angel.

Thank you, Matthew. Hello, everyone. We're happy to have you join our third quarter calls today. First, I want to recognize Joe Henricks. He led this company through some difficult times and worked with this leadership team to make some real progress. Now we are all eager to move forward from a solid position. My connection to this industry goes way back. My career started at GE where I worked directly with locomotives and rail operations. That experience gave me a deep appreciation for railroading that has stayed with me. I spent the last couple of decades leading large industrial companies, specifically industrial gas companies, but the interest in rail never faded. There are some similarities between the industrial gas business and the railroad industry. First of all, safety. It isn't just a nice thing to do. It is a sacred responsibility. Everyone must come home safe at the end of each and every workday. Industrial gas and railroads are both capital-intensive businesses. Our strategy at Lindy was to build network density in targeted geographies. That is how you leverage your infrastructure to generate ever-higher returns on capital. That concept applies to the railroad industry as well. I think of pipelines and railway track the same way. He who owned the pipelines, provided they were in the right locations, had a strong advantage over their competition. Same for railroad tracks. Another similarity is our vision. At Lindy, our vision is to be the best performing industrial gas company in the world. And we achieve that in some cases by a large margin over the next best competitor. At CSX, our vision is to be the best performing railroad in North America. I like that. And when we say best performing, I'm certainly talking about financial performance, operating margins, return on capital, cash flow. But I'm also talking about safety, customer service, employee engagement, integrity and ethics. And I don't see any of these as being mutually exclusive. You can be best in class in all these areas, in every important aspect of running a great railroad company. How do you do it? It takes a concerted effort. Sounds trite, but you have to make the most important things the most important things. Focus, execute, grind the details, repeat. Build a strong, stable foundation and get better every day. In essence, you build a discipline, high-performance culture, and you build a talent pipeline that will sustain the culture long after you're gone. That's enough about me. I'll turn it over to Mike.

Thank you, Steve, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. First, I want to recognize the very good work of our teams across the network. Their dedication and their execution have really led us to deliver one of our strongest operational performances in recent years. And we're building on that great service cost momentum from last quarter, and it's really paying off. We're seeing improvements across the board, but it's really exciting to see the railroad become more efficient and even more responsive to our customers' needs, especially given the current market conditions. We can turn to the next slide. As Steve noted, safety is our largest shared responsibility. Our FRA personal injury frequency rate picked up slightly from last quarter, but the bigger picture is very positive. Through September, we've seen a solid reduction in moderate and severe injuries with fewer cases requiring employees to miss work. This shows our safe CSX program is working. Our culture is shifting to be more proactive, data driven, and safety focused in daily operations. On the train accident front, this quarter was the best since the end of 2023. Human factor accidents are down 16% year-to-date thanks to targeted efforts, better training, and smarter tools that help our people make safer decisions. Next slide. Now let's take a look at the operational performance. This was our fastest quarter for train velocity since early 2021. For all time, hit its lowest point since mid-2023, and average daily cars online were the lowest since 2020. That shows how disciplined the team has been in running a balanced, efficient network even while major construction continued on the Howard Street Tunnel and Blue Ridge subdivision. Fit plan compliance continued to improve. Intermodal TPC rose to 93 from 90%, and carload TPC climbed to 83 from 75%. These are strong gains, a result of the fluidity of the network. Next slide. I'm proud of how this team has kept momentum on improving asset utilization. With market changes and mixed shifts, our ability to be efficient and nimble is extremely important and was evident last quarter. Through disciplined asset and cost management, we reduced train miles and optimized horsepower utilization, running efficiently without impacting customers. These improvements show up in our solid fuel productivity and horsepower management. Car miles per day also improved, reflecting both faster train velocity and our unwavering focus on yard operations. Let's go to the next slide. And finally, I want to highlight two major wins for us. the Howard Street tunnel and the Blue Ridge subdivision projects. Both were extremely complex efforts and finished slightly ahead of schedule, a tremendous accomplishment. And I want to give a big thank you to everyone on our team who was involved to make that happen. With these projects complete, we now have full network access, positioning us for greater capacity and resiliency as we go forward. In closing, I couldn't be prouder of the team. The momentum this quarter is real and we're going to keep it going we're not done improving innovating or delivering for our customers and shareholders and each other so with that i'll hand it over to Kevin.

All right, thank you Mike Mike just mentioned, we are excited about the Howard street tunnel and blue Ridge projects are complete. As we move forward customers will see benefits from reduced out around miles that will improve on our best in class service levels. Starting in the second quarter of 2026, we will begin to capitalize on double-stack clearance through Baltimore that will expand our intermodal service offerings into the Northeast region. Looking across the markets we serve, business conditions are mixed. Customers face uncertainty and headwinds from shifting trade policies, weak global commodity prices, unsupportive interest rates, and a persistently soft trucking market. Now let's turn to merchandise revenue on slide eight. Revenue and volume was down 1%, with RPU flat, as core pricing gains were offset by lower fuel surcharge and unfavorable mix. On the positive side, minerals volume and revenue were up 8% and 12%, respectively. The team continues to capitalize on strong demand in aggregates and cement by leveraging our unique footprint into the southeastern market. Fertilizer volume rebounded due to improved production at a key phosphate producer, which helped drive 7% growth in the quarter. Metals and equipment volume was up 5%, driven by increased wallet share combined with new capacity on our network. Increased automotive production drove 1% higher volume, and moving forward, production levels are expected to remain relatively steady through year end with minimal anticipated impacts from the aluminum supply challenges. Broader market softness and tariffs continue to impact our forest product and chemical markets. where we have some customers that have rationalized production. For both, volume was down 7% compared to the prior year, but positive core pricing has mitigated revenue declines. Ag and food volume was down 7% as a strong southeastern crop has provided feed buyers a robust local supply. We've also seen increased competitiveness in the ethanol and weakness in certain food and consumer products. In the fourth quarter, we expect a stronger export market and improving domestic grain trends from the Midwest harvest. Now let's turn to slide 9 to review the coal business. Coal revenue declined 11% for the quarter on 3% lower total volume. All-in coal RPU declined 9% year-over-year, but as shown in the slide, the headwind from export benchmark pricing continues to diminish as we move into the fourth quarter. Export tonnage was down 11%, largely due to reduced production associated with mine fires we had noted earlier in the year, but recent trends have been encouraging. Our operational performance has been very strong, and we are pleased with the recent reopening of a key export mine. Our domestic coal business continues to see steady trends through the year. Steel industrial tonnage was down 15% year-over-year due to softer market fundamentals and reduced domestic steel production. On the other hand, utility coal performed well over the quarter, with tonnage up 22% year over year. Power demand remained supportive, held by higher natural gas prices. Turning to slide 10, Intermodal performed well despite a soft trucking market and muted pricing. Third quarter revenue was up 4% on a 5% increase in volume. Our international business benefited from strong growth with key customers. Share of impacts and general consumer demand remain watch items. Volumes have softened in recent weeks, which looks largely in line with typical seasonality. Domestic volumes grew modestly year over year, primarily due to new service offerings. Following a successful bidding season for our IMCs, the strongest found volumes, we expect continued strength in our domestic business in the near term. As we look ahead to the end of the year and start of 2026, we are excited about the opportunities to leverage the strength of our network performance. Win in the marketplace and find ways to create and creatively convert more business to the railroad. Now, let me turn it over to Sean to discuss the financials.

Thank you, Kevin, and good afternoon. Third quarter reported operating income was $1.1 billion and earnings per share was 37 cents. These figures include $164 million and 7 cents per share from impairment of the remaining goodwill related to quality carriers. I'll now speak to adjusted third quarter income statement excluding the goodwill impairment charge. Revenue was lower by about 30 million or 1% as 1% volume growth and an increase in other revenue were offset by headwinds from unfavorable mix in coal pricing. Adjusted expenses increased by 3% and I'll discuss the details on the next slide. Interest in other expense was $19 million higher compared to the prior year, while income tax expense fell by $46 million on lower pre-tax earnings and a lower effective rate that was driven by renewable energy and state tax credits. As a result, earnings per share fell by two cents, reflecting a combined two cents of discrete unfavorable impacts, $35 million of restructuring, severance, and regulatory advisory expenses, and approximately $25 million of network disruption costs related to the recently completed Blue Ridge and Howard Street projects. CSX is well positioned in building momentum. Year-over-year headwinds ease into the fourth quarter and strong operational execution and cost control provide a positive setup for improved results. Let's now turn to the next slide for a closer look at expenses. The total expense variance includes the $164 million charge based on impairment testing completed during the quarter. Despite the difficult trucking market, Quality Carriers has helped drive truck-to-rail conversions, maintained industry-leading share, and stable pricing across its end markets. We're working closely with the QC team to aggressively identify additional efficiency opportunities that will support an improvement in near-term financial results while still positioning Quality Carriers to fully capture the upside when the trucking market recovers. Expenses excluding the impairment increased by 71 million, or 3%. including approximately $60 million of severance, network disruption, and other costs noted on the prior slide. This expense management reflects solid fundamentals and disciplined execution, delivering increased volume with a lower railhead count and year-over-year efficiency savings across the expense base. Turning to the individual expense line items, labor infringers up $9 million year-over-year, including $22 million of management and executive severance. These costs, plus the impact of inflation, were mostly offset by lower incentive compensation and efficiency savings, reflecting lower rail headcount and network-driven improvements in T&E overtime and ancillary costs. Headcount will hold stable to slightly lower sequentially in the fourth quarter, while cost per employee will see a normal seasonal increase, as the benefit of lapping restructuring and severance costs will be at least partially offset by higher incentive compensation expenses. Purchase services and other costs increased $54 million year over year. This was driven by cycling a prior year favorable inventory adjustment, as well as network disruption costs this year, trucking casualty and freight damage claims and inflation, plus $13 million of restructuring and advisory costs, slightly offset by higher property gains. Importantly, the team delivered significant PS&O efficiency savings, which were broad-based. COB, Steve Armstead, continued execution and the easing of network disruption costs will help partially offset normal sequential increase in PSA know in the fourth quarter, despite five to 10 million in regulatory advisory costs. COB, Steve Armstead, depreciation was up $8 million due to a larger asset base fuel cost was up 5 million driven by additional consumption due to network reroutes and a slightly higher price per gallon partly offset by improvement in gallons per gross ton mile. Finally, equipment and rents decreased by $5 million year-over-year with higher costs from inflation and the negative impact of reroutes on car cycle times, offset by savings from improved fluidity and increased income generated from company-owned real estate. We're encouraged by the structural cost improvement the team delivered in the third quarter. These efforts position us well to build upon strong resource utilization and identify additional efficiency opportunities. Now turning to cash flow and distributions on slide 14. targeted and efficient investment in the safety reliability and long term growth of our railroad is our highest priority use of capital. Copy additions are higher year to date, including 440 million of spending towards the rebuild project on a blue Ridge subdivision in total spending to rebuild the blue Ridge is now expected to exceed 500 million before insurance recoveries. year to date free cash flow is $1.1 billion. which includes over 850 million of cash outflows for Blue Ridge and previously postponed tax payments. Lastly, CSX remains committed to shareholder distributions and has returned over $2 billion year to date. Now for a review of our guidance. Given solid network momentum, new business wins, and expanded service offerings, we still expect to deliver volume growth for the full year. Recall that our fourth quarter performance in 2024 Black Falls major hurricanes. We expect our fourth quarter results to reflect the strong operating performance and cost efficiencies that we have driven through the year. There's no change to our four-year CapEx guidance of $2.5 billion, excluding the Blue Ridge. Finally, we expect to continue our demonstrated long-term track record of powerful cash generation, combined with a strong investment-grade credit rating that enables value creation through the opportunistic use of share repurchases, while also annually reviewing the dividend with steady increases for over 20 years. With that, let me turn it back to Steve for his closing remarks.

We are encouraged by the progress made this quarter. Our team did a great job at working together and responding effectively to the test faced earlier in the year. The railroad is running well, and we have a strong foundation to drive further improvements. While the underlying economy is mixed, our customer service is strong, and we have excellent relationships with those customers. We are working closely with numerous partners to help accelerate the build-out of industrial capacity on our network. And our commercial team is actively developing new solutions that will help us expand our reach and gain share. We've received quite a few inquiries on strategic opportunities. We will, of course, pursue anything we believe can create compelling value for our shareholders. We are confident in our path forward and energized by our vision to be the best performing railroad in North America. With that, Matthew, we will open it up for questions.

Thank you, Steve. We will now proceed with the question and answer session. To ensure that we maximize everyone's opportunity to participate, we ask that you please limit yourselves to one and only one question. Colby, we are ready to begin.

Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and enter the queue. If you'd like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. Thank you. The first question comes from the line of Brian Ausenbeck from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Brian Ausenbeck Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. So, Steve, maybe to start off with the obvious one, you've been through An industry before that had complex M&A, as you mentioned, there's some similarities there to railroad. So stepping into the role, realizing you've only been there for a couple weeks, how do you believe the company's positioned versus your peers, obviously, pursuing a TransCon merger? And do you feel like that's part of the mandate in terms of why you were brought into this position in the first place? Or is that something that interested you, given your prior history? Thanks.

Thank you for that question. So if you... You alluded to my history, and if you go back and look, I ran Praxair for 10 years before we concluded a merger with Lindy AG. And so you could say I was very patient, but the way these things work, these strategic opportunities, you've got to wait for the right timing. You've got to wait for when the conditions are right. So what you do in the interim, you run the company to the best of your ability every day, and you create value that way. And so, you know, if, and when that time comes, you're going into that discussion from a position of strength. So that's really how I think about it. You've got to run, you know, the franchise you have to the best of your ability, build value that way, keep your eyes open for strategic opportunities. And when they come, you put yourself in a good position to capitalize on it.

Your next question comes from the line of Stephanie Moore from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. I wanted to touch on, if you think about two things that are happening, one is the completion of your large infrastructure projects, and then two, as was obviously noted, some changes from a strategic standpoint in the industry. So maybe, Steve, if you wanted to talk about how you're positioning the company to essentially capitalize on both of those factors. One is directly in your control.

then the other might be in response to some of the actions of your peers thank you you will take the first question yeah sure yeah stephanie happy this is sean happy to kind of talk a little bit about blue ridge and howard street and i think you know obviously that sets us up very well as we go into next year um you know the network recovered really well this year. It's operating, you know, about the best that it has in quite some time, which is great. And we're building cost momentum on top of that. Now you've got both our north south routes that are open. You know, it will take us into Q2 next year before we get that double stack capacity from Howard Street. But that's exciting because it means, you know, cost reduction. It also means ability to sell into that. So a well-run uh network uh you know hopefully going into uh a year next year where we start to see a little bit of momentum build uh really helps us out and you know i think that's that's something to build on longer term as well and i'll take the second part of the question so you know if you think about what's taking place strategically uh in this industry you know when you have you know the prospect for a merger whether it's this industry or any industry

there are, you know, pluses and minuses associated with it. There are risks and opportunities that come out of any type of consolidation within an industry. And so, you know, it really behooves us to, you know, mitigate those risks and capitalize on those opportunities. I think, you know, a lot of it remains to be seen. You know, I was, you know, interesting enough, I was involved in the industry, though tangentially, when the first merger that I remember took place. It was UP and SP. I think it was back in the late 90s. And, you know, that didn't go so well. That didn't go swimmingly. And I think a lot of what's taken place with the STB in terms of the new standards that are now in place with respect to what's in the public good, demonstrating enhanced competitiveness and what might take place downstream, that really came about as a result of that. So I think it's interesting to watch, obviously, as they move forward with their application and they have to demonstrate the standards that need to be met. We'll have an opportunity to review that. What you can rest assured is we're going to make sure that we're competitive no matter what. So I talked about mitigating risk, taking advantage of the opportunities. But we also want to make sure that we have a chance to present our case in terms of what we need to be competitive going forward. And that's what we'll do.

Your next question comes in the line of Chris Weatherby from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. I guess maybe a question for Steve and maybe Kevin. I'm kind of curious, as you guys go through this period, Steve, you noted maybe some inbound strategic opportunities. I don't know if that's coming from the customer side or maybe other partners in the rail industry, but as you think maybe customer response to what's going on with consolidation in the industry. Do you think CSX is well positioned to take advantage of that as we go through a period of uncertainty over time? Because how do you guys think strategically about the opportunity that's in front of you as a standalone right now while we're seeing integration going on in the industry?

Well, I mean, it all starts with running this business to the best of our ability, and that positions us well from a customer service standpoint. Mike talked about the way the railroad's running today, and we feel very good about that going forward. yes i think there's some opportunities you could you could certainly say that maybe some of these opportunities are coming forward as a result uh of what might take place from a merger standpoint but i think the opportunity set has always been there for railroads to work more closely together to take trucks off the road for example and so we see those opportunities we're working on those opportunities you can look at our numbers and see we've already had some success And I think that's definitely additive to our base case going forward, and we'll continue to pursue those opportunities.

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Hoekster from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Great. Good afternoon. It's Ken Hoekster from, yeah, B of A. Steve, welcome. Congrats on the new role. Seems like service from Mike Corey's presentation is operating well. Sounds like things are progressing kind of actually very well given the improvements. Major costs are leaving the network, as Sean detailed, and maybe Sean can maybe detail the expenses, where we are now, how quickly they leave. But what do you look at and aim to do? Is it, you know, maybe is it selling quality, you know, to improve operation, to improve? Is there something on operations? that as you went through the process, the interview process that you were focusing on that was not right, maybe talk to us about what at CSX you see that needs to be changed. Is it the culture, operations? What are you brought in and what do you hope to do?

Well, I think, as I said in my remarks, I think the team really responded well to some challenges during the course of the year. And I think You know, they turned into solid quarter. So, you know, I always, you know, when you come into a situation like this, and I talked a lot about, you know, driving productivity, efficiency, best in class, best operating margins, all of those things. You know, you do that by building a high performance culture. And, but you got to start with stability. And whether you're talking about operations, you're talking about the company, you must be stable. Because if you're not, you're not going to have a chance to work on continuous improvement every day. So I like what I've seen in the team and the performance with respect to that during the third quarter, but really during most of the year. I think that gives us a good foundation going forward. And from that, it's really working all the profitability levers, efficiency, productivity, price yield, volume. Then you get into capital efficiency and all of that. And it's just that's what running a business is all about. That's what excites me. And, again, it all starts with a solid foundation and a great company and a great industry. And it's about building a high-performance culture and becoming best in class.

Your next question comes from the line of Ari Rosa from Citigroup. Your line is open.

Thanks. And Steve, let me echo the congratulations on the new role. If I could ask a kind of two separate but related questions. So following on Ken's point, is there anything that you see kind of doing differently versus kind of what's already been in place? Because we understand the network has been running quite well. And then, you know, in terms of the the opportunity to double stack and some of the opportunities that are opened up by the, by the new projects. Could you speak to, and maybe there's actually a better question for Kevin, but how much opportunity there is there in terms of actually filling that capacity given, you know, the completion of these projects now? Thanks.

Yeah, let me take the second one. You know, we've been talking about probably double stack. You know, we have people here that have been here for 40 years about opening up the last kind of part of our network that needed that clearance for a long, long time. And so we're very excited about what that creates in terms of market access for us into the Northeast. And you'll see us obviously start to market that during bid season. You know, in the second quarter, we'll start that service and we'll grow into it. So it won't be an overnight thing. But, you know, we expect to work with customers and they're very excited about what we can offer there. And then I'll also add the Blue Ridge. You know, it's on us and it's on the sales team to capitalize on that route. And there's opportunities in the works, too, that we're working on to continue to drive and obviously get a return on that reinvestment that we had to make.

And with respect to your first question, the way I would describe my priorities is drive best-in-class performance. And I talked about that and all that that entails. Build a high-performance culture, develop a strong pipeline of talent, and then capitalize on strategic opportunities that can create compelling value for our shareholders. So that's my focus.

Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Chappelle from Evercore. Your line is open.

Thanks, Colby. Good afternoon, everyone. Sean, you cleared a lot of the disruption period. It seems like the costs are going to start to melt off really quickly now that these two big projects are done. You laid out a couple guideposts, so to speak, for margin improvement year-over-year in 4Q and also EBIT growth next year with the absence of any type of volume. Can you help us think about the exit rate on some of these important cost line items, starting in 4Q and going into 26? You read that PS&O section in your release, and there's just like a litany of things that you can't really tell if they're one time or not. So just any kind of help you can provide on the major cost line items for 4Q, in addition to what you've already noted, and how we think about then run rate into 26.

Yeah, Jonathan, um, let me, let me see what I can do there in terms of Q3 to Q4. So the unique items in this quarter, you had severance and restructuring costs, um, of about 30 million. You got the advisory cost of five. That 30 million is roughly 20 ish in labor, roughly 10 in PS and O. Then you had the, the ongoing costs from the network reroutes and so on and so forth. That was 25 in the quarter. About half of that was in PS and O. We'll have a little bit of that that lingers into fourth quarter, call it about $10 million with demobilization and sort of some final costs coming through there. So, you know, between that, you've got about sort of... $45 million of sequential benefits that you'll see from Q3 to Q4. I will note, though, you saw the other revenue line that was strong this quarter. That probably normalizes back down to kind of 120 to 130. And then incentive comp will likely be a little bit higher, 10 to 20 higher in Q4. That's how to think about the sequentials. Those items kind of net out when you pull it all together. But at the end of the day, you know, I think underlying all that is strong cost momentum. And we're seeing it in labor, you know, with headcount down, volume up. We'll see that likely continue into Q4. You're seeing PS&O efficiency. You saw strong gains in fuel efficiency. Car cycle times are better. That's impacting rents. All of that provides a nice setup as we get into next year. And, you know, just to tie a bow on that, all of that network disruption and whatnot probably gives us about $100 million out of the gates going into next year of costs that will not repeat.

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Group from Wolf Research. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks. Afternoon. So, Steve, you've said best in class multiple times. And it sounds like in your mind that's inclusive of margins. I'm not sure you're like ready to give like all the details yet, but just at a high level, like is when you sort of do your initial look, is this a cost opportunity? Can we get back to a better pricing algorithm? Or are you just thinking more of a volume growth and operating leverage kind of story? I just want to understand like your vision of how you get back to best in class.

But I'm still working on it. I haven't got there yet. But the way I would think about it, Scott, is obviously price yield is a part of the equation. Volume growth is important to leverage our cost structure and the margins fall through more heavily, especially as you get the right kind of volume through the system. I think, you know, again, the railroad is running well. And so, you know, with that as a basis, you can really work on continuous improvement within the railroad system. I think that falls through. And, you know, those are kind of levers to profitability. And so that's I really think in terms of improving operating margins year over year. And I think if you work all three of those levers together, You're able to grow your margin some basis points. I haven't put a number on it yet, but some basis points per year, and you can get to, you know, best in class. Or if you're not best in class, you're rivaling best in class. And so that's really the objective.

Your next question comes from the line of Brandon Oglinski from Barclays. Your line is open.

Hi, good afternoon, and welcome to Railroading, Steve. I guess I was wondering if you could give us your initial impressions of the commercial strategy at CSX, because if you've looked at recent history books for railroads, we can generally see these carriers getting priced. You can get some cost efficiencies, but I think what's proved elusive for a lot of CEOs and maybe your predecessor is really converting that highway to rail opportunity. What do you see as potentially limiting volume for the group, and how are you going to pursue that differently? Thank you.

Well, I can't say for sure how I'm going to pursue it differently, but, you know, there are some opportunities that, um, are here with, um, our other railroads working together, uh, to really take the friction out of the system. And, you know, I think it's a fair question why it didn't happen in the past. I think there could be several reasons for that, but it does seem to be a concerted effort working with several of our partners, um, to really take that truck volume off the highway and onto rail. And, uh, you know, we're starting to see some of the benefits of that. I think if you look at it or no intermodal numbers this quarter, you know, it looks pretty good. And I think the, uh, the projection going forward looks pretty positive. So I'm, you know, I'm optimistic based on what I've seen. I understand it really hasn't, if you go back historically, we really haven't had this level of cooperation as we're seeing today. Uh, I've seen a lot of people in this building that, uh, are from the other railroads, and I think we're clearly working together to make this happen. So I think there's reason for optimism.

Your next question comes from a line of Tom Wadowitz from UBS. Your line is open.

Yeah, so I guess, you know, Kevin, you're not getting as much airtime as you normally do, so maybe I'll give you one. How do you think about markets and just kind of where you think they may go? I mean, you've got fairly considerable weakness, chemicals, metals, forest products. Is there any kind of reason for optimism near term, any signs of improvement or kind of things that you maybe move beyond? And I guess if you look at it maybe into 26, you think car load can kind of rebound or should we be thinking more about intermodal as the growth driver? Thank you.

Thanks, Tom. Um, I haven't gotten a little less airtime, but look, there's a, I think, um, in my opening comments, I, you know, talked about a lot of it's a mixed bag. Uh, the team has done an incredible job on the aggregate side and cement side, and we're continuing to capitalize on our, um, not only our footprint, but just some of the strategic things we're able to achieve over the last year. And that's really showing a lot of momentum. And I think that, uh, can, can continue. There's a lot of confidence there. We've had some unique items that have really impacted us this year. We've had a few closures on us that I mentioned, pretty concentrated in the forest products area, which everybody's familiar with some of the consolidation that's happened in that market. But I do think that market, with a little bit of bump from the economy, could come back for us. I'm not predicting that at this point, but some of these markets that are very low in terms of the cycle where they are. Chemicals has been one of those that we've highlighted all year long that have faced a lot of pressure from tariffs and other things. And I think just more certainty around where everything lands in terms of what the tariffs look like, what the new rules going forward will create some certainty around investments and other things that will be helpful to our business. The metal side, the team has done an excellent job of going after some market opportunities with the EAFs and scrap opportunities there. So I think we're controlling what we can control. Some of these markets undoubtedly have been hit over the last couple of years, and we've been able to offset them. I think the one thing that's probably surprised us this year is some of the temporary closures. We've had a number of outages, temporary outages on our network, whether it's in the coal side with two mines or on the chemical side. We've really faced some challenges, and the hope there is that we'll see some better performance as we move into next year. So not here to call the cycle. You know, we had one of our customers obviously talk about trucking capacity starting to come out. That's good to hear. We'll see if that materializes in the next year. That would be extremely helpful for a lot of our markets where we compete against truck. And we've been in probably the longest down cycle that all of us have seen in a long, long time. So. The domestic coal side, you know, that story was a challenge a year or two ago, and I think there's a lot more optimism on what we can do there in terms of utilization on the plants we serve today. So a lot of great work by the team, a lot of strategic thinking. We'll continue to lean into where we find opportunities. To Steve's point, we'll continue to work with all of our partners to create opportunities. The good thing is I think overall the rail industry is performing pretty well versus where we've been the last few years, and that gives us all the opportunity to lean into those opportunities to convert modal share across the network.

Your next question comes from the line of Walter Sprinklin from RBC Capital. The line is open.

Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. My question here is for Mike. Steve mentioned best in class, and Kevin indicated that some of the capacity improvements might take maybe in the mid-year next year. But is it unreasonable to think that operations can perhaps reestablish themselves a little quicker than that? Would you say whether there's anything stopping you getting continued improvement through fourth quarter and perhaps being in a position to run the railroad at a fairly optimal performance level from an operational standpoint through 2026.

Thanks for the question, Walter. You know, to get it to optimal, we're running very well right now. I'll just go back. It's our fastest quarter for train velocity since 2021. Our Cars online are the lowest in five years. Our dwell is down about as low as it's ever been. We expect improvement on each and every one of those. Now, these projects are going to give us capacity, but really resiliency as well. We suffered the first quarter with two of those two routes out. We may normally only handle 20% of our volume, but they could have handled about 40% at that time with what we were inflected with between Cincinnati and Birmingham. Our focus is always going to be to execute, grind, sweep the corners, continue to improve on every one of those things. But it's all of it together. So, no, Walter, expect to continue to improve. You know, we still have weather coming up against us. Storm season's not over, and we have winter. But we learned a lot. That capacity will essentially not just get its resiliency, but it gets us stable. And that's where we've been this last two months. And as Steve said, that's the basis for us to improve on. So that's it.

Your next question comes from the line of Ravi Shankar from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for the time. Just a clarification on an earlier comment that you made in response to an M&A question. Did you say that you're already seeing opportunities because of the merger? If you can clarify that or expand a little bit and also How far in advance do customers think of their rail sourcing or rail versus truck shift or intra-rail kind of share shift? Is that something that is kind of done pretty tactically on a year-forward basis, or is that something that can be long-term planning as well?

Thank you.

In terms of what you see in the market, these are things that the team consistently has been working on for the last few years. I think some of them have materialized, obviously, in the short term, but we have a very strategic thinking team that has had these ideas. I think some of them probably haven't materialized because the industry had to get to a place where we're thinking about growth from an operations standpoint. A lot of struggles, obviously, through COVID and digging ourselves out of the hole with the workforce. You know, I think this is a natural progression out of that, that we're now as an industry leaning into that. And I think we have a team that's forward leaning on that and bringing ideas to the table and really working with every partner that can benefit and grow the business for the CSX franchise. So a lot of opportunities there. I'm trying to understand the second question, but maybe I'll pass on that one. Your next question.

Your next question comes from the line of Richa Harnane from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Hey, gentlemen. Thanks. I want to go back to your investor day some time ago. You shared some pretty exciting stats regarding the growth outlook, particularly in intermodal, the ability to grow maybe above GDP. Just as we fast forward from then to today and considering how well your service metrics have improved despite some of the headwinds that you've undertaken and and all of that. I mean, how should we think about, you know, those growth projections? I mean, could they be stronger? And I know, Kevin, you said that you're going to be selling Howard Street Tunnel during this bid season and potential to sell it in Q2 of next year. But any inklings from customers as far as how they're feeling about that product and, again, that ability to sort of grow stronger than maybe you thought a couple quarters ago?

Well, you know, we did lay out some of the benefits that we expected to see from the Howard Street Tunnel in that presentation. So I think we're on track. And, you know, now it's up to the team to deliver on that. In terms of, you know, we have a great service right now. And it all begins with a service team. And we're able to dynamically go after these opportunities as they come along. And we're always talking to customers about markets and where they see the opportunity. And, you know, we have one particular customer that's highlighted that within the east that they see a huge conversion opportunity. And we're We're highly interested in that. We're highly interested in working with everyone to convert that. Obviously, it's got to have a return. It's got to be attractive to all parties, make the investments that might be required to go after it. But there's a lot of work being done. I think we have the best team up against it to understand where those opportunities are. And you're seeing a lot of momentum that's playing out in our weekly volumes.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Sadele from TD Cohen. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks operator and guys. Thanks for taking my time. Steve, congratulations on the new role there. Definitely exciting for you. I'm going to turn it back over to give some time there to Kevin. Kevin, can you talk a little bit about the marketing agreement with the BNSF and sort of how we should think about the build as you move through 26? And then I guess, Are you guys looking to tie that freight up longer than the normal sort of one-ish year on a domestic intermodal front in terms of contracts, given that you might have a competitor coming out after that? And I guess a follow-up on the coal you mentioned, I think you seem a little bit more positive. Is the positivity on the coal due to sort of increased demand for domestic coal in data centers, or is it something else?

All right, let me handle the coal one first. You know, I think you're clearly seeing a shift in just the political environment, the regulatory environment there, and I think that provides opportunities for better utilization in some of the, you know, obviously the utilities that we serve. You know, data center is a hot topic right now everywhere, and that's certainly one of the demand pulls on electricity demand right now. So we're very positive on that market. You know, weather does impact that one. So, you know, we always look for a cold winter in the south. That's always helpful. So normal weather is a good thing. And, you know, we kind of, that played out this year. And so we continue to work with the plants that we serve to advantage them in the market to take, you know, more capacity there. So a lot of success, a lot of good work by the team to really go after that opportunity. I mean, our modal side, you know, again, you know, some of the things that we've announced recently have been in the works for a long, long time. The team has been It's constantly having discussions with partners around how we can create the best-in-class service and more options for our customers to reach markets in a more efficient way. And so I think that's an outcome of not something that we recently started, but things that we started last year and that have really materialized here recently. We got a lot of other ideas. We're continuing to work on those things. I think the velocity of those things Maybe to Steve's point in our ability to execute them quickly is maybe improved with basically the industry in a better position to grow with the service. And we lead the way with our best in class service in the East. So you'll continue to see things where there's opportunities for us to go and capitalize on.

Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Aliger from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Yeah, hi, afternoon. Hi, Steve. Just sort of curious, you know, I know you've only been in the seat for a couple weeks or so. I'm sure – well, I would imagine, you know, some customers, maybe some larger customers have been, you know, calling to say hello and what have you. I'm wondering, given what's going on with UNP Norfolk Southern – Any read from folks you might be speaking to externally in terms of giving you thoughts on what might be good from a competitive standpoint for you guys? Thanks.

I would say, you know, since I've been here, we haven't had that kind of discussion.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Kaufman from Vertical Research. Your line is open.

Thank you very much. Steve, welcome aboard. Best of luck to you. I figured I'd ask a question to Sean here. You know, just based on the idea that you're not going to have the Blue Ridge expenditures next year and you're not going to have these congestion costs and there are some things you're excited about, you know, it looks like cash flow could double if the world goes right, maybe up 50% to 70% if it doesn't. Not that you've spent it before you earned it, but can you tell me about cash priorities for 2026? Are there projects that you haven't been able to get to that are at the top of the list? Do you want to bring debt down to a certain level, or would more of that free cash flow probably be aimed at shareholder capital returns?

Jeff, I appreciate the question. As you can probably imagine, we're working through our plans for next year as we speak. We'll give you an update certainly on that as we move along here, but just stepping back, I think the good news is we don't have any major construction projects that are planned for next year with the Howard Street and the Blue Ridge complete, there's nothing anywhere close to that scale that's on the horizon for us in 2026. So we will continue to maintain capital discipline, focus that capital on safety and reliability, and then look for projects that help drive strong returns and support the growth that we're looking to deliver. So it'll be more of the same on that without the significant spend on those big projects And then after that, we've been fairly consistent in our approach here, strategic and opportunistic use of cash flow to lean in when it's possible on share repurchases. And we've looked on an annual basis at the dividend and raised it modestly for 20-plus years. So you'll see more of the same from that, I think, from our perspective.

Your next question comes from the line of David Vernon from Bernstein. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, guys, and thanks for putting me in here. So, Steve, I wanted to ask you, and maybe in the broader team, a bigger picture question around the industrial logic on end-to-end railroad mergers. How do you view that, and do you think it's possible to recreate those economics through partnership arrangements like you guys have been doing with the airline deals with BN and NCN? One of the other possible ones has come out and obviously said, you know, they're not very interested in a merger and they're asking customers to reject. I'm trying to get a sense for kind of where you shake out on the topic of whether or not an end-to-end railroad merger is actually a good thing to pursue.

So the way I think about it is, and I was reading your entire question here, is that The whole focus is really performing well as a standalone company. And then we've talked about some of these opportunities. We've talked about it several times through the course of this that I think are very interesting to us, see a good bit of potential, and provided the economics are favorable, we'll continue to pursue that. So I think that's how we'll drive shareholder value. Now, if there's a better path to drive shareholder value, downstream will certainly pursue that. But it's kind of hard to really say, standing here today, how all this is going to shake out, because there's a lot of it that hasn't been determined yet. There is a very rigorous approval process that two parties are going to have to go through. And when I read the language of the evaluation criteria from the STB, it's pretty onerous. So I think there's a lot I think it's really too early to to address some of what you've got up there. But I can say right now we can improve the performance of the base business, capitalize on the opportunities in front of us. And if there's a better path to shareholder value that presents itself later on, we will 100% pursue that.

Your next question comes from the line of Bascom Majors from Susquehanna. Your line is open.

Steve, when you think about your philosophy on incentivizing your team, what do you think the right annual and long-term incentive structures are for senior management, the railroad industry, and really CSX specifically? Thank you.

I think if you go back to my earlier comments, obviously profitability, operating margins, I mentioned that. I think if you... I think growth is important to this industry, and if you're able to get the right kind of volume, the right kind of growth, there's tremendous leverage down the P&L statement, so I think those are metrics that matter. In an industry like this, you always have to have safety. I don't think you should ever take that for granted, and I think calling that out and having 1,000 or so people, at least from a management level, compensated based on safety performance is a very important metric. You know, customer service has not been, you know, the hallmark of this industry historically. So, therefore, having calling that out as a metric that's important, I think, is a good idea. And that's what we have here today. I think long term, because this is a capital intensive industry, you know, a return on capital metric makes the most sense to me. That's what I'm familiar with. And that's what, you know, we utilized in my past life. And I used to say that, you know, return on capital is the truth serum. It kind of encapsulates all the decisions you've made in the past plus the decisions you're making going forward and what kind of returns you're earning on your capital base. So, you know, I, for one, like return on capital for an industry like this.

This concludes today's question and answer session. As well, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.