Rail freight in US plays vital role in nation’s supply chain, experts say

Loeb said while the freight rail industry has historically been slow to grow its market share compared to commercial trucking and other modes of transportation, he sees the industry shifting to a focus on resilience and smart, sustainable long-term growth.

Atlanta-based Norfolk Southern has almost 20,000 route miles across 22 states and the District of Columbia, connecting 800 industrial sites, 175 warehouses and 43 ports. The company ships over 2,923 commodities, including automotive and metal products.

“When you look at the broader industry, I think coming off of 20 to 25 years of maximum cost efficiency, we’ve taken as much costs out of the network as we can,” Loeb said.

“You have to at some point look at the other part of the equation, which is growth. If you look at the numbers, this industry has not grown particularly in what we call the carload space, the bulk business, the non-intermodal trailer container business. With the strategy with Alan Shaw, our CEO, and Ed Elkins, our chief marketing officer, one of the reasons they brought me on about 14 months ago was to create this entity, first- and final-mile markets, to create solutions to make rail easier to bring that growth onto the network from a myriad of different places.”

Prior to joining Norfolk Southern in April 2023, Loeb spent 13 years at short line railroad Watco Cos. in various roles, the last of which was executive vice president and chief commercial officer.

Having worked in the short line railroad space for over a dozen years, Loeb said it gave him a broader view of the entire railroad landscape across the country and how it can be utilized.

“I am lucky in that I came from that space, so I got to see across all the railroads, what I liked and didn’t like as a short line,” Loeb said. “Then coming over to Norfolk Southern, we’ve done a really good job tailoring that relationship, so it works. We spend a lot of time on it.”

Norfolk Southern has more than 270 connections with shortline railroads across the country.

“These are small railroads that extend our network, get us to shippers that aren’t on Norfolk Southern and have a tremendous history of growth,” Loeb said. “In creating a program in our department that tracks 40 different interchanges where we have identified substantial growth, and making sure that we interchanging every single day per the plan, and that we’re tracking it and fixing it as quickly as possible, leading to tremendous growth has shown that that’s an efficiency gain, to focus on consistency to drive growth.”

In April, Norfolk Southern merged two of its wholly owned subsidiaries, Triple Crown Services Co. and Thoroughbred Direct Intermodal Services. The newly formed entity operates under the name Triple Crown Services Inc.

Loeb said Triple Crown offers brokerage and trucking services to customers.

“It’s about trying to make it easier for customers to be able to use Norfolk Southern rail products in a bundled solution — to try and grow our business,” Loeb said.