CSX Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the CSX Corporation's third quarter 2026 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 that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Matthew Korn, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Mr. Korn, you may begin.

Thank you, Abby. Good afternoon, everyone. We're very pleased to have you join us. Thank you for attending today's talk. Joining me from the CSX leadership team are Steve Angel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Boone, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, and Maryclare Kenney, Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. In the presentation that accompanies this call, which is available on our website, you will find slides with our forward-looking and our 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. Good afternoon. I'm pleased to report that CSX has delivered another quarter of strong financial performance. Earnings of 57 cents per share increased 30% compared to last year's adjusted results. Our volume grew 5% as more customers turned to our railroad to safely and reliably move their goods. And our operating margin improved to 39.1%, which was 420 basis points higher then last year's adjusted result. The progress we continue to make on productivity has helped drive substantial growth in profitability, earnings and free cashflow. Our goal is to be the best performing railroad in North America. And the entire CSX team is responding to that challenge. We are proud of how far we've come this year and excited about our position as we look ahead to 2027. Before we turn to the details, I want to recognize Mike Corey, who recently announced his retirement after a 45-year career. Mike is a true railroader who has made significant contributions to CSX, our customers, and our employees. He also developed a deep bench of operations leaders, and I am confident in Doug Ryarchuk, Casey Albright, and the entire operations team as we continue executing on our priorities of safety, reliable service, and long-term value. We thank Mike for his leadership and wish him all the best. Turning to slide four, the work underway to strengthen our safety culture contributed to another quarter of year over year improvement. Our FRA injury rate decreased by 17% and our accident rate fell by 4%. While we are encouraged by that progress, our work is never finished. We will continue our efforts to reduce risk, increase awareness, and improve communication to support our employees as they do their jobs. We do not and will not compromise on safety. We also continue to improving productivity. Third quarter fuel efficiency was not only the best ever achieved by CSX, but also the best ever reported by any U.S. railroad. And workforce efficiency, as measured by gross ton miles per employee, improved substantially year over year. This next slide shows our key service metrics. We're encouraged by this sequential improvement in velocity, dwell, and customer switch data, which measure first mile and last mile performance. Trip plan compliance for our carload business also improved modestly quarter over quarter, though intermodal trip plan compliance declined. We are handling more volume safely and efficiently, but we know our network can perform better. Operations is connecting more closely with our commercial team, giving us better visibility into demand and helping us get the right number of crews and locomotives to the right locations. Active crew management is improving engineer and conductor availability. Better planning and coordination between engineering and transportation is leading to less network disruption as we execute our capital projects. and technology such as autonomous track inspection cars is helping us plan better and respond effectively to day-to-day events on the railroad, supporting faster trains and fewer delays. Services started strong in October with velocity averaging more than 19 miles per hour this month and dwell approaching 10 hours. Our team also did an excellent job preparing for Hurricane Isaias which we managed through with minimal impact. We intend to build on this momentum, ensure that our service supports our growing business. Kevin, please review our financial performance for the quarter.