CSX Corp (CSX) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

April 20, 2023 4:30 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the First Quarter 2023 CSX Corporation's Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Matthew Korn, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Matthew Korn - Head, IR

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter call. Joining me this afternoon are Joe Hinrichs, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jamie Boychuk, Executive Vice President of Operations; Kevin Boone, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing; and Sean Pelkey, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

In the presentation accompanying this call, you will find our forward-looking disclosure on Slide 2 followed by our non-GAAP disclosure on Slide 3.

And with that, it's my pleasure to introduce our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Joe Hinrichs.

Joseph Hinrichs - President, CEO & Director

All right. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Matthew, and thank you all for joining our conference call. Working together, the ONE CSX team delivered a strong first quarter, driven by solid pricing as well as volume growth in our merchandise and coal businesses. With sufficient resources in place, we are able to use the benefits of our scaled railroad model to deliver improvement in our customer service performance that are driving real tangible financial results. Our network is running well, and we intend to do even better and show that CSX can sustain reliable service over time, which is essential for us to profitably grow our railroad. 2023 has already proven to be a very active year. One of our top priorities after the national union agreements were finalized last December was to address the matter of Paid sick leave for our union employees. I am very pleased that CSX demonstrated important leadership here. Starting in February, we were the first U.S. class [Technical Difficulty] more details about the specific proactive steps we have been taking to make CSX safer. I have also been actively involved in discussions with our leaders in Washington and the across states our network about some of the legislation that has recently been proposed. They know that it's better for our economy, our environment and our communities for railroads to move a greater share of the nation's freight.

They also know that CSX is eager to be part of solutions that are effective, data-driven and will make our whole industry safer. We do not want safety performance to be a competitive advantage for CSX, but wanting to be something our entire industry is proud of. We have been encouraged by our conversations with senior policy leaders and we'll continue to engage with them in the months ahead, sharing best practices and building on our common ground.