This is the first in a five-part series about railroad growth coming from truck conversions. Given Union Pacific’s proposed acquisition of Norfolk Southern, their Dec. 19, 2025 Surface Transportation Board application estimates there will be more than two million trucks converted to rail from this new network within three years. Based on my professional experience as a former Union Pacific executive focused on growth during much of my tenure, I want to analyze and opine based on my own experiences. Part 2 of this series will dive deeper into carload watershed growth; Part 3 into intermodal conversion challenges; Part 4 into competition among railroads in general; and Part 5 into the proposed Committed Gateway Pricing (CGP) relative to competition and effects on shippers. Time for Math Two million new truck conversions to rail from UP’s acquisition of NS: The premise is that, without this transaction, the existing railroads can’t get this freight converted from truck. From the carload watershed perspective, I tend to agree, but it’s more complicated than it seems—hence, Part 2 of this series. From an intermodal perspective, I’m perplexed, based on my professional experience in UP’s intermodal business running interline container programs (EMP and UMAX). I am a “plank owner” in the UP/CSX UMAX container program in addition to being responsible for UP’s intermodal growth in some capacity from 2006-2016—10 years. As of Week 50 2025, the UP and NS franchises combined are 51% intermodal and 49% carload freight across 15.1 million revenue moves. If the growth…
