From the Editor: Minding uncertainty and controlling controllables

When Union Pacific Railroad and Norfolk Southern Railway announced their intention to merge four short (long) months ago, it forced North American rail industry stakeholders to consider (or reconsider) the way they plan to position (or reposition) themselves in the near and longer terms.

Not that they hadn’t been considering and positioning before that. But the watershed moment that is UP-NS required stakeholders — Class Is, in particular — to start getting more specific, and vocal, about what they believe the North American rail landscape ought to look like. And the lengths to which they’ll go to help ensure it looks that way.

We saw it and heard it and felt it at our 21st annual RailTrends® conference in New York City last month. The electricity was palpable — in part because of the star power of the speakers, which included UP CEO Jim Vena, this year’s Railroad Innovator Award recipient. But you could feel the current because this year’s 41 presenters addressed the near and longer-term future head on with clarity.

They spoke with conviction about the proposed transcon merger. Would it be better for customers? Yes, of course, Vena told attendees and speakers, including the three members of the Surface Transportation Board. Other Class I execs, including BNSF Railway EVP and CMO Tom Williams, argued that the absence of a merger would be way better.

And after a year of tariffs, North American trade tussles and a largely collective silence from rail stakeholders about same, RailTrends speakers expressed considerable concern about the future of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The three countries must conduct a joint review and decide whether to extend the pact by July 1, 2026. Several speakers urged, and urged with passion, that industry stakeholders do what they can to help get it extended.

RailTrends ‘25 featured a few other threads and undercurrents, of course. Be sure to check out RailTrends Program Consultant Tony Hatch's review. Also read Managing Editor Jeff Stagl’s RailTrends ebook, which will be posted later this month on progressiverailroading.com.

From a moment to a window

Merger update: UP’s Vena had hoped his railroad would file the merger application before Dec. 1. But at the Dec. 2 UBS Global Industrials and Transportation Conference, he said it’d be another two weeks before it would be filed with the STB, and “then we’ll start that clock process going.”

The process is likely to take at least a year maybe two, stretching this milemarker of a moment in rail time into more of a watershed window. A window likely to open into other potential uncertainties.

That’s at least partly why many of the leaders who responded to questions about the year ahead for our annual outlook coverage vowed to focus on the things they can control in the months ahead. As NS President and CEO Mark George told us: “We don’t anticipate uncertainty disappearing overnight, but we do expect clarity to improve as supply chains recalibrate and trade policies stabilize. Our approach is to control the controllables.”