For the third quarter of 2016, US rail freight provider CSX reported revenues of $2,710m, down by 8% year-on-year, consistent with an 8% fall in volumes overall.
By operating segment, year-on-year volume changes for the third quarter were as follows: agricultural and food products (-10%), fertilisers (1%), chemicals (-7%), automotive (+6%), metals and equipment (-13%), minerals (-1%), forest products (-7%), coal (-21%) and intermodal (-7%).
Expenses decreased by 7% year-on-year in the quarter, thanks to $112m of efficiency gains and $53m of volume-related cost reductions.
These cost savings partially offset the impact of lower volume and changing business mix. The upshot was that operating income declined 10% to $841m, meaning that operating margin increased by 0.7 percentage points to 69.0%.
Source: CSX
