Jacksonville Chill

Railroad Weekly July 24, 2023

Photography by Frederick Manfred Simon © www.steelwheels.photography

Inside This Issue  

·   Jacksonville Chill: CSX Reports Q2 Drop in Volumes, Revenues

·   But Still a Full Till: Financially Last Quarter, CSX Did Just Fine  

·   Still Still: Few Signs of Revival Yet for Depressed Intermodal Market

·   Hunt’s Grunts, Knight’s Plights: Leading IMC’s Explain their Pain

·   Three Party: For CSX, All’s Well in the Auto, Metal, and Mineral Markets  

·   Steel Appeal: Steel Dynamics Says Market Still Strong

·   Deep at the Port of Texas: Houston Defying Worst of Intermodal Slump

·   ILWU Canada Re-Declares War: But New Pact Heralds Peace at Last  

Track Talk

“Our team is not sitting back and waiting for markets to turn. We are pushing forward with our own initiatives.”

-CSX’s chief of sales and marketing Kevin Boone

The Latest

·   South of the border, CSX became the first North American railroad to report its Q2 earnings, as discussed below. It was in some ways a dispiriting report, with volumes and revenues down. The intermodal market is a mess. The chemicals market is soft. Same for forestry products. But overall, CSX’s quarter was still pretty good. Autos, minerals, and metals were unambiguously strong. Coal revenues aren’t quite so sky-high as they were a year ago, and neither are natural gas prices. Nevertheless, the coal situation remains generally favorable. Service and reliability are now good. Employee relations seem to be improving some in the Hinrichs era. Growth remains top of