CSX (CSX) FY2025 results: revenue $14.1 billion, down 3.1% on the year

CSX hauls freight by rail in the eastern United States, moves intermodal containers and trailers, transfers freight between rail and truck, and runs bulk commodity operations. It is based in Jacksonville, Florida. The principal operating subsidiary, CSX Transportation, runs an approximately 20,000 route-mile network across 26 states east of the Mississippi River, the District of Columbia and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, with access to over 70 port terminals on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. It connects to other Class I railroads and to approximately 250 short-line and regional railroads, which is how it reaches thousands of production and distribution sites. CSX Transportation also handles the group's real estate sales, leasing, acquisition, management and development, almost all of it in support of the railway.

The four lines of business

Merchandise is the biggest earner: 2.6 million carloads in 2025, 41 percent of volume and 62 percent of what the company took in, covering chemicals, agricultural and food products, automotive, minerals, forest products, metals and equipment, and fertilisers. Intermodal is the biggest by volume at 3.0 million units, 48 percent of volume but 15 percent of the total, combining rail economics with the flexibility of trucks. Coal shipped 718 thousand carloads, 11 percent of volume and 13 percent of the total: domestic coal, coke and iron ore to power stations, steelmakers and industrial plants, and export coal to deep-water ports, with most exports going to steelmaking and most domestic coal to electricity generation. Trucking was 6 percent of the total, and comes from Quality Carriers. Another 4 percent is other income: regional subsidiary railroads it does not operate itself, intermodal storage charges when a container sits beyond an agreed time, demurrage when freight cars are held too long, and switching charges for moving cars for a customer or another railroad.

The other subsidiaries

Quality Carriers is described as the largest bulk liquid chemicals trucking business in North America. CSX Intermodal Terminals owns and runs intermodal terminals, mostly in the eastern states, and does drayage, the pickup and delivery of intermodal shipments, for some customers. Total Distribution Services serves the car industry with distribution centres and storage sites. TRANSFLO moves products from rail to truck for customers with no rail connection, mostly chemicals and agriculture including plastics and ethanol. CSX Technology and other subsidiaries provide support services.

How the railway is run

The operating model is a scheduled service plan, strictly maintained, aimed at better customer service, better asset use and more engaged employees. The filing states that executing it wins more freight business and reduces costs.

History

The company traces itself to the chartering of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the country's first common carrier, in 1827. CSX Corporation itself was incorporated under Virginia law in 1978, and in 1980 merged the Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries, connecting northern population centres and Appalachian coalfields to the Southeast. Acquiring key parts of Conrail later linked the northeast, including New England and New York, to Chicago and midwestern markets, and the network now also includes what was acquired from Pan Am. Conrail still owns rail infrastructure operated for the joint benefit of CSX and Norfolk Southern, the shared asset area, charging fees for right-of-way use, equipment rental, transportation, switching and terminal services.

Regulation

In the U.S. the railway answers to the Surface Transportation Board, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, with the Environmental Protection Agency over properties and operations and the Transportation Security Administration over practices with homeland security implications; in Canada, the Canadian Transportation Agency. Although the Staggers Act of 1980 deregulated much of the industry, the Board still regulates routes, fuel surcharges, conditions of service, rates for non-exempt traffic, control acquisitions and the transfer or abandonment of lines.

People

There were approximately 23,000 employees in December 2025, approximately 16,900 of them members of a rail labour union covered by national agreements with the Class I railroads or by CSX-specific agreements. New agreements effective 1 January 2025 had been ratified by unions representing nearly 75 percent of the unionised workforce at the time of filing, the rest still under previous agreements while negotiations continue, since agreements under the Railway Labor Act do not expire but run until amended or replaced. The FRA personal injury frequency index, reportable injuries per 200,000 man-hours, was 0.94 in 2025 against 1.23 in 2024, and hitting safety targets forms part of management's annual incentive.

From CSX's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing

Written from the 10-K filed 12 February 2026: read the full 10-K.