(The following story by Bill Archer appeared on the Bluefield Daily Telegraph website on July 12.)
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — Charles W. “Wick” Moorman, president and CEO of Norfolk Southern Corporation peeked out the picture window of a second-floor conference room in the railroad’s Pocahontas Division headquarters on Princeton Avenue in Bluefield as a westbound intermodal train passed through the busy Bluefield yard.
“Our intermodal business is growing,” Moorman said. “It amounts to 21 percent of our business now, but our coal transportation remains the biggest part of our freight business at 25 percent. It’s still, kind of, the backbone of this railroad. We’re in the process of replacing our entire coal car fleet over the next 10 years. We’re getting 1,300 (new higher-capacity) coal cars next year.”
Moorman, 55, became NS president and CEO early in 2006. Since that time, he has made regular visits to the railroad’s 11 operating divisions a part of his routine. “I go to a different division each month,” he said. Wednesday marked his second visit to Bluefield. The NS Pocahontas Division has its southern border at the Bluefield city limits, and extends westward to Big Stone Gap, Va., east to Lockwood near Summersville, and north to Columbus, Ohio.
Moorman, a native of New Orleans, La., and graduate of Georgia Tech (1975) and the Harvard Business School (1985) started his career in railroading with the Southern Railway in 1970 — first as a co-op student, and later in 1975 as a management trainee and track supervisor. While he has been in the NS management team since the early 1990s, it is probably no surprise in railroad circles that he looks to basic components of the industry to draw analogies for the system’s present success.
“Conrail was interesting to go through,” Moorman said of the often spirited competition between NS and CSX over Conrail. NS was successful in its bid to acquire 58 percent of Conrail, but the business community watched the merging railroad cultures very closely. The deal was completed in 1999.
Moorman said that only a few of Conrail’s senior management people made the move to NS, “but we got some very good people,” he said. “The merger has been remarkably successful and remains as one of the untold success stories. Norfolk Southern is divided into three regions and the general managers in two of those three regions are from Conrail. When we get together, we don’t talk about being from Conrail or Southern. They’re Norfolk Southern people.
“Right after the merger, we started to hear some real positive things coming from our track people,” Moorman said. “All of a sudden, they saw new cross ties and rails going in. When they saw we were committed to the railroad, the transition went remarkably well.”
Moorman said that NS and the rail industry in general have witnessed dramatic growth during the past 3 to 4 years. “As a result, our portfolio has improved,” he said. While the growth has benefited investors, Moorman said NS has re-invested profits into its capital budget. He said NS’s $1.35 billion capital budget this year represents the railroad’s largest annual investment.
He said several factors have combined to push rail’s present boom. He said the interstate highway system provided opportunity for growth in long-distance trucking, but added that the system was “largely paid for by others.” He said the trucking industry had “low barriers” for entry including relatively low investment costs, inexpensive fuel and good highways. However, he noted that fuel costs have grown, the highways have become congested and the life of a long-distance trucker doesn’t have the same appeal for the present generation.
Moorman said that as a result, shippers are turning more to railroads. “It bodes well for the future,” he said.
According to Moorman, one of NS’s strengths during the past two decades has been the company’s passion for safety. “We were proud to accept out 18th consecutive Harriman Award earlier this year,” Moorman said. “After our fourth consecutive Harriman, we stopped using the term: ‘unprecedented.’ In time, you run out of superlatives.”
Moorman said that the company applies that same passion for safety to its commitment to customer service on its way to achieving the promise of its mission statement to be: “The safest, most customer-focused and successful transportation company in the world,” he said.
Progressive programs include the “heartland corridor” program announced last fall that will open the Midwest to double-stacked international, maritime and domestic carriers from Hampton Roads, Va. The public-private partnership joins NS with the Federal Highway administration as well as Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. That component of NS’s infrastructure is set to be in place by 2009.
Moorman noted that talented employees who tend to stay with the railroad many years are responsible for the railroad’s continued success. “Norfolk Southern is made up of such good people that it makes an enjoyable place to work,” he said.