Indecent Disclosure

Railroad Weekly May 18, 2026

courtesy: Steel Wheels Photography

Inside This Issue

· Indecent Disclosure: UP Merger Foes Demanding More Info

· Room to Boom? Can UP-NS Yards Handle All That Projected Growth?

· Wicked Switch of the West: UP Cries Foul Over BN Pricing Move

· Double Stack Attack: CSX IM Trains Moving Lots More Thru Baltimore

· Where is My Share? NS is Losing Some IM Biz to CSX. Why?

· They Left for Labor, Now Come for Energy: Firms Sing New Tune, Says Kevin Boone

· Yesterday’s Voices: A Panel of Ex-Execs Speak on Current Events

Track Talk

“We don’t think that putting that much power in the hands of one combined railroad is good for the economy. It’s not good for the supply chain. It puts a lot of risk… a lot of pricing power in the hands of one railroad.”

-CPKC CFO Nadeem Velani

The Latest

· Two full weeks have now passed since Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern filed their amended merger application. Opponents, led by BNSF, CSX, CPKC and CN, still say it’s incomplete. They question the application’s projections regarding market share growth, revenue growth, and volume growth. They say it doesn’t adequately address “downstream effects,” meaning the impact of any subsequent mergers. They still have questions about a jointly-owned switching railroad in St. Louis. They want more information about UP’s pricing strategies. BNSF, for its part, claim the two railroads “have not addressed more than 100 outstanding discovery requests.” Already in January, it was demanding that they produce more documents, such as board materials, banker presentations, and internal emails. CN last week did claim a victory when an administrative law judge supported its demands that UP and NS hand over more information.

· Amid the skirmishing over information and data, the STB must now decide if the revised application meets its standard for completeness. Only later will it evaluate the central question: Whether the merger meets its standard for “enhancing competition.” To be sure, industry stakeholders are already vigorously debating that, not least at two major industry conferences last week (see below). Should truck share shift be