CSX Corporation

What does CSX own?
CSX owns CSX Transportation, which operates an approximately 20,000 route-mile rail network across the eastern United States and parts of Canada, plus Quality Carriers, a bulk liquid trucking company acquired in 2021.

Is CSX publicly traded?
Yes. It trades on the Nasdaq under ticker CSX and is a component of the Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500 indexes.

Who is the CEO of CSX?
Steve Angel, the former chairman and CEO of Linde, became president and CEO on September 28, 2025. He replaced Joe Hinrichs after activist investor Ancora Holdings pressed the board for a change.

What does CSX stand for?
The name derives from the 1980 merger: C for Chessie System, S for Seaboard Coast Line Industries, and X signifying the multiplied value of the combination.

Is CSX merging with another railroad?
No merger is pending as of November 2026. Berkshire Hathaway ruled out bidding for CSX in August 2025, and CSX instead expanded a coast-to-coast intermodal partnership with BNSF. Union Pacific's proposed acquisition of Norfolk Southern remains under Surface Transportation Board review.

How large is the CSX rail network?
Approximately 20,000 route miles serving 26 states east of the Mississippi River, the District of Columbia, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

How much revenue does CSX generate?
FY2025 revenue was $14.1 billion, down 3 percent from FY2024, with operating income of $4.5 billion.

CSX Corporation was created on November 1, 1980, when Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries merged their holding companies. The name was meant to signal that the combination was more than the sum of its parts: C for Chessie, S for Seaboard, and X for multiplication.

The underlying railroads were much older. Chessie System, organized around the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, had combined with the Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland under common control in the 1960s and 1970s. Seaboard Coast Line Industries traced to the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line, themselves mergers of dozens of 19th-century southern railroads.

Consolidation of the operating railroads took most of the decade. Chessie's railroads merged into CSX Transportation in 1986, and the Seaboard System followed, giving the company a unified eastern network. The late 1990s brought the defining transaction: in 1997 CSX and Norfolk Southern jointly acquired Conrail from the federal government for approximately $10.2 billion and split it between them, with CSX taking 42 percent of the assets. The integration produced years of service problems before stabilizing.

The 2000s and 2010s saw the company adopt precision scheduled railroading under CEO Hunter Harrison in 2017, a restructuring that cut costs sharply but drew shipper complaints and regulatory attention. James Foote succeeded Harrison after his death in late 2017, and former Ford executive Joe Hinrichs took over in 2022 with a labor-relations focus.

The mid-2020s brought consolidation pressure. Union Pacific's July 2025 agreement to acquire Norfolk Southern for approximately $85 billion threatened to leave CSX competing against the first true transcontinental railroad. Ancora Holdings urged the board to pursue a merger or replace Hinrichs. Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett and Greg Abel ruled out a bid for CSX in August 2025, and CSX instead expanded an interline intermodal partnership with BNSF linking western and eastern routes. The board replaced Hinrichs with Angel that September.

Rail is the most fuel-efficient form of surface freight transport, and CSX promotes emissions reduction as both an environmental and commercial argument, marketing the shift of freight from truck to rail as a way for shippers to cut Scope 3 emissions.

The company has invested in fuel-efficient locomotives, idle-reduction technology, and alternative fuel testing, and publishes ESG reporting through standard frameworks. Its coal business creates a structural tension: hauling thermal coal exposes CSX to the energy transition it otherwise benefits from.

Labor relations: A bitter national freight rail contract dispute in 2022 ended with Congress imposing a settlement; Hinrichs' subsequent hiring was partly a labor-relations repair effort. New agreements covering most unionized employees took effect January 1, 2025.

Merger speculation and activist pressure: Ancora Holdings publicly pushed for Hinrichs' removal and for CSX to pursue consolidation after the UP-NS announcement. The CEO change satisfied one demand; the merger question remains open as of November 2026.

Service and safety regulation: Like all Class I railroads, CSX operates under Surface Transportation Board and Federal Railroad Administration oversight, and precision railroading-era service complaints led to periodic STB scrutiny in prior years.