Go Away, We’re Not Your Prey

Railroad Weekly March 4, 2024

Inside This Issue  

·   Go Away, We’re Not Your Prey: NS Board Rejects Ancora’s Plan to Toss the Boss  

·   Barks at the Sharks: STB and Union Leaders Also Say: Go Away

·   Stop Misrepresenting What We’re Presenting: Ancora Barks Back

·   Furlough Inferno: Unions Up in Arms as BNSF, UP Cut Maintenance Jobs

·   No Water, No Problem: North Dakota and its Railroads

·   Grain Slam: UP Trumpets Gains from Grains in 2023  

Track Talk

“It is imperative the company continues to execute on its strategy, without interruption or interference, for the benefit of shareholders, customers, communities, and the industry.”

-Norfolk Southern board chair Amy Miles

“We made clear that your current CEO has presided over industry-worst operating results, sustained share price underperformance and an ineffective and tone-deaf response to the preventable derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.”

      -Ancora’s Jim Chadwick, in a letter to Miles

Update on the Norfolk Southern Board Battle

NS Board Rebuffs Ancora

·   There’s no letup in the nasty battle between Norfolk Southern’s management and Ancora Investments, the firm attempting a boardroom coup. Early last week, the railroad’s 13-member board responded to the attack by emphatically—and unanimously—rejecting it. And to shore up shareholder support, it nominated two new board members of its own. Both are prominent names: Heidi Heitkamp, a former U.S. Senator from North Dakota, and Richard Anderson, who once ran Delta Air Lines and later Amtrak. (Publisher’s note: Anderson features prominently in my book, “Glory Lost and Found: How Delta Climbed from Despair to Dominance in the Post-9/11 Era” -Jay).

·   The board called Ancora’s rival business plan “short-sighted,” and one that