North American Railroads: May Labor Productivity Update: U.S. Rails Pushing Productivity, Norfolk Management Churn Continues

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North American Railroads: May Labor Productivity Update: U.S. Rails Pushing Productivity, Norfolk Management Churn Continues

J P M O R G A N North America Equity Research

18 June 2026

North American Railroads

May Labor Productivity Update: U.S. Rails Pushing

Productivity, Norfolk Management Churn Continues

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) recently released U.S. railroad head count Airfreight & Surface Transportation /

data for May that showed carloads were up +14.1% MoM per workday while Shipping

industry-wide T&E head count was down -0.1% MoM, and on a 3M MA volume basis Brian P. Ossenbeck, CFA AC

productivity was up +3.8% MoM (see Figure 1). On a carload per employee basis, UP (1-212) 622-1023

is still running at record productivity levels as it did for most of 2025 (Figures 9-14), brian.p.ossenbeck@jpmorgan.com

BNSF productivity is running at or near records across most labor categories (Figures Grady Carr

15-20), and CSX and Norfolk are both running solidly above 2024/2025 productivity (1-212) 622-1251

levels (Figures 21-26 and Figures 27-32). The Canadian rails, however, have shown grady.carr@jpmchase.com

deterioration in productivity levels on a carload per employee basis (U.S. only) vs. the Brandon Wexler

(1-212) 622-1956

past few years. Overall, we view the May update as a positive for U.S. rails based on brandon.wexler@jpmchase.com

the trend of 3M MA productivity gains since March. The May data appears to be a J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

continuation of the improving labor productivity that was evident in the 1Q26 results

and we expect to see further productivity impact in 2Q26. We also note lower

headcount levels at UNP, CSX and NSC vs. our expectations have led to ~+2.6%,

+1.4% and +2.6% upside to our estimates, respectively. However, we are keeping a