North American railroad companies by carloads 2023
In 2023, BNSF Railway was ranked first among North American railroad companies, with over nine million carloads of freight transported.
Focus on Norfolk Southern Railway
Norfolk Southern Railway is one of the seven U.S. Class I freight railroads operating on approximately 20,000 miles of tracks in the Southeast, East, and Midwest of the United States. It began operations in 1982 under the parent company, Norfolk Southern Corporation, and has been headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia since 2021. The company is a major transporter of coal, automotive, and industrial products, operating a fleet younger than the average age of the North American locomotive fleet.
In the 2022 fiscal year, the company employed around 19,300 people. In that same fiscal year, it generated almost 12.7 billion U.S. dollars in revenue from its three major business lines – general merchandise, intermodal, and coal. Commodities such as chemical, agricultural, metal,revenue share and construction products make up the railroad’s highest share of revenue.
The railroad is among the leading North American railway company in terms of revenue-ton miles and carloads. According to Forbes, the company was valued at around 52.29 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, ranking it fifth among the world’s largest railway companies. In April 2016, a proposed merger worth almost 30 billion U.S. dollars was dropped when Canadian Pacific Railway failed to acquire Norfolk Southern after facing heavy resistance from other peer railway companies.
