By Joanna Marsh, Freight Waves; July 25, 2019
Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) expects continued operational changes will help boost profits and lower operating ratios in the second half of the year.
Top21 and Clean Sheeting are two initiatives that arose out of NSC’s version of precision scheduled railroading (PSR), an operating model that seeks to streamline operations. These initiatives “exposed numerous opportunities for cost savings in the second half of this year and beyond, which we are now aggressively pursuing. These savings, coupled with the modest top line growth we expect in the back half, give us confidence we will achieve our stated goals even amid economic uncertainty,” said NSC chief executive officer Jim Squires during his company’s second quarter earnings call on July 24.