New CEO and Board for CSX?

This week, the board of the Jacksonville-based CSX railroad will consider a company takeover.

CSX is the largest publicly owned company in town (Jacksonville) and North America’s third-largest railroad, valued at $43 billion. About 3,500 employees work for the company in Northeast Florida.

Former Canadian Pacific railroad CEO Hunter Harrison and his affiliated hedge fund, Mantle Ridge, are targeting CSX.

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Read the whole article here.

To think E. Hunter Harrison was happily retired a few years back.

I don't Harrison was ever happily retired. His ego won't allow it. He seems intent on screwing up as many railroads as possible.

I heard on Facebook that CSX rejected E. Hunter Harrison as CEO. Good riddance to that guy!

CSXfoamer1997 said:

I heard on Facebook that CSX rejected E. Hunter Harrison as CEO. Good riddance to that guy!

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Per last announcement from CSX, the special meeting to make that decision is after March 16, which is the date of record for the meeting. Could you provide a bit more specific citation than a vague "heard it on Facebook" perhaps?

E H Harrison wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to CSX actually. Even now he is causing them to restructure now which is good without him being CEO. You'll likely see the main lines so the A Line and the JAX-NASH-CHI line getting major capacity increases and the other main lines. Which definitely would benefit Amtrak.

The downside a lot of under performing lines will be shed to regionals and shortlines. And even that's not terrible because a good shortline or regional will grow traffic and new customers. Also that could make it easier to add Amtrak service to lines.

And in the middle of good and bad the Cardinal might be able to go daily. Of course CSX will want money in sure. But they would be more willing to negotiate.

And on the preservation front it isn't a horrible either. Some of the short Spurs and branches they've held onto with no customers could be given to museums. Also E H Harrison isn't exactly unfriendly to steam especially because while he was CEO they hired several people for their steam shop for the company owned Hudson. And that was very recent maybe a year or two old.

So all in all he isn't the worst person to have at CSX. And if you remember while he was CEO of Canadian Pacific they were able to straighten out their portion of the Empire Builder for OTP.

Hunter Harrison is interested in only one thing: making piles of money for himself and his Wall Street allies. He's also interested in his tremendous Trump-like ego. He will strip CSX to the core, there will be no big capital improvements. He will fire thousands of people and make life miserable for those who are left. He has no interest in historic rail preservation. The CP Hudson was stored soon after his arrival in Calgary and hasn't been seen since. Under Hunter, Amtrak has done OK with the Empire Builder and the Hiawathas, so-so with Adirondack, but CSX is a much bigger host for Amtrak, I expect things will get worse under Hunter, unless Amtrak and other transit agencies put up billions of dollars in improvements.

CSX Corp. has agreed to appoint Hunter Harrison as its next chief executive, people familiar with the matter said, giving the railroad veteran a four-year contract to slash costs and revamp one of the country’s biggest railways.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/csx-agrees-to-hire-hunter-harrison-as-ceo-1488829040

Mr. Harrison plans to improve profits at CSX by cutting jobs and closing several rail yards, according to people familiar with his plans. As part of this strategy, Mr. Harrison aims to shift some of CSX’s operations away from Rust Belt states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania to more economically vibrant Southern states.

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Folks in the South are apparently not particularly unhappy about this....

Is it sad that my first thought on hearing this was "Maybe CSX will finally get out of the way of a second LSL"? From what I recall, the main (if not only) reason that has been so definitively off the table has been CSX saying "hell no".

CSX accepted him as CEO! If they go out of business, it won't surprise me!

CSXfoamer1997 said:

CSX accepted him as CEO! If they go out of business, it won't surprise me!

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Well, the last time I looked both CN and CP are both still in business and at least the stock owners are doing much better so far. So there is at present no definitive reason to believe that CSX will go under except for preconceived hatred of Harrison AFAICT. OTIOH, clearly many current employees won't be doing very well evidently.