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Norfolk Southern Railroad
Reporting marks	NS
Locale	Eastern United States, Ontario
Dates of operation	1980 – present
Headquarters	Norfolk (Virginia)

The Norfolk Southern AAR Reporting mark NS, is a major Class One railroad in the United States, owned by the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The company operates 21,500 route miles in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia and the province of Ontario, Canada. The most common commodity hauled on the railroad is coal from mines in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The railroad also offers an extensive intermodal network in eastern North America. The current system was planned in 1982 with the formation of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, merged on December 31, 1990 with the lease of the Norfolk and Western Railway by the renamed Southern Railway, and augmented in 1998 with the acquisition of over half of Conrail.

Contents 1 History of the railroad 1.1 Southern Railway 1.2 Norfolk and Western 1.3 1982 merger 1.4 Conrail

[edit] History of the railroad

Norfolk Southern was created from predecessor railroads which date back to the early portion of the[19th century. Prior to current times, the three main branches of the current corporate family tree were for many years themselves systems: Norfolk and Western, formed in 1881, Southern Railway System in 1894, and Conrail, formed much later, in 1976. Each of these grew from many smaller local and regional lines as the industry grew.

[edit] Southern Railway

The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road, the earliest predecessor line, was chartered in December 1827 and ran the nation's first regularly scheduled passenger train on December 25, 1830. The Richmond and Danville Railroad (R&D), formed in 1847, which expanded into a large system after the American Civil War under the leadership of Algernon S. Buford.

When the R&D fell on hard times financially in the early 1890s, it became a major portion of the newly created Southern Railway in 1894. Financier J.P. Morgan selected veteran railroader Samuel Spencer as President to head the firm, which became well-known as both profitable and innovative. Southern Railway was the first major U.S. railroad to completely switch to more efficient diesel-electric locomotives from steam in 1953.

[edit] Norfolk and Western

The City Point Railroad was a nine-mile railroad just south of Richmond, Virginia established in 1838 which ran from City Point, Virginia (now part of the independent Hopewell, Virginia|) on the navigable portion of the James River to Petersburg, Virginia. It was acquired by the South Side Railroad in 1854. After the War, it became part of the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (A,M&O), a trunk line across Virginia's southern tier formed by mergers in 1870 by William Mahone, who had been builder of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad in the 1850s. The A,M&O was the oldest portion of the Norfolk and Western (N&W) when it was formed in 1881, under new owners with a keen interest and financial investments in the coal fields of Western Virginia and West Virginia, a product which came to define and enrich the railroad.

In the second half of the 20th century, the profitable N&W had already acquired the Virginian Railway, the Wabash Railway, and the Nickel Plate Road, among others, before it combined with the also profitable Southern Railway to form the new Norfolk Southern.

[edit] 1982 merger

NS was created in 1982 from the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and the Southern Railway Company, both profitable companies. An earlier company, also named the Norfolk Southern Railway, serving primarily North Carolina and the southeastern tip of Virginia, had been acquired by the Southern Railway in 1974. The older company was the namesake for the 1982 combination. Headquarters for the newly established Norfolk Southern were established in Norfolk, Virginia.

The 1982 combination of the profitable Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway was done to compete in the eastern United States with the Chessie System-Seaboard Coast Line merger which had been approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1980, resulting in formation of CSX Transportation.

[edit] Conrail

Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) was an 11,000-mile (18000 km) system which had been created in 1976 by bringing together several ailing northeastern railway systems into a government-owned corporation. Conrail had become profitable after the Staggers Act in 1980 largely deregulated the U.S. railroad industry.

On June 23, 1997, Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation filed a joint application with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) for authority to purchase, divide and operate the assets of Conrail. On June 6, 1998, the STB approved the Norfolk Southern-CSX application and set August 22, 1998, as the effective date of its decision.

Norfolk Southern acquired 58% of Conrail’s assets (CSX got the remaining 42%). As a result of the transaction, Norfolk Southern's rail operations grew to include some 7,200 miles (11500 km) of the Conrail system (predominantly the former Pennsylvania Railroad). Norfolk Southern began operating its trains on its portion of the Conrail network on June 1, 1999.