OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – CSX Corp. expects to deliver a 25 percent increase in profits this year as the railroad works to streamline operations under new CEO Hunter Harrison.
The Jacksonville, Florida-based railroad said that its earnings per share will jump about 25 percent over last year’s $1.81, but that excludes restructuring costs.
Harrison said he thinks there is more opportunity for improvement for CSX than there was when he started at Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railroads.
“I think one of the things that people miss is the more complexity there is in the network the better model you can apply to it and you can take more advantage of the opportunities,” Harrison said.
All the railroad mergers that went into building CSX over the past 190 years left it with way more infrastructure than it needs, especially in the Rust Belt where the steel and automotive industries once dominated, Harrison said.