Over the past six years, all the railroads confronted with the push to implement precision scheduled railroading, if they hadn’t already. Shareholders demanded it, motivated by PSR’s success at the Canadian railroads. Union Pacific launched its PSR efforts in late 2018. PSR has proved to be an optimal path to greater network efficiency and higher incremental margins, due to the more efficient use of assets.
PSR efforts yielded impressive progress for UP's operating ratio between 2019 and 2021. Despite setbacks in 2022 and 2023, the firm rekindled margin improvement over the past several years under PSR veteran Jim Vena's leadership.
Intermodal pricing is grappling with pressure from depressed rates in the competing full-truckload industry, and that will linger into the first half of 2026.
|
Metric
|
UNP
|
CNI
|
CSX
|
|---|---|---|---|
Price/Earnings (Normalized) | 22.66 | 22.10 | 27.04 |
Price/Book Value | 8.33 | 4.75 | 6.43 |
Price/Sales | 6.55 | 5.97 | 6.19 |
Price/Cash Flow | 16.49 | 15.20 | 17.52 |
|
Metric
|
UNP
|
CNI
|
CSX
|
|---|---|---|---|
Quick Ratio | 0.66 | 0.40 | 0.77 |
Current Ratio | 0.92 | 0.67 | 0.97 |
Interest Coverage | 8.05 | 7.85 | 5.63 |
|
Metric
|
UNP
|
CNI
|
CSX
|
|---|---|---|---|
Return on Assets (Normalized) | 10.24% | 8.05% | 7.39% |
Return on Equity (Normalized) | 40.40% | 21.73% | 25.10% |
Return on Invested Capital (Normalized) | 15.92% | 12.46% | 11.85% |
|
1-Day Chart
|
Name
|
Price
|
Morningstar Rating for Stocks
|
Capital Allocation
|
Economic Moat
|
Market Cap
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CSX Corp
CSX
| Cpmstxmv | Gttlj | $86B | |||
| Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd
CP
| Zlpbtdgp | Jhvd | $79B | |||
| Canadian National Railway Co
CNI
| Lzpzktgqn | Hxzc | $73B | |||
| Norfolk Southern Corp
NSC
| Rbnvkgcr | Hpkcg | $69B | |||
| Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp
WAB
| — | Dgzn | $45B | |||
| MTR Corp Ltd ADR
MTCPY
| — | Wthfvd | $25B | |||
| MTR Corp Ltd
MTRJF
| — | Qxbplc | $25B | |||
| East Japan Railway Co
EJPRF
| — | Ghnfs | $23B | |||
| East Japan Railway Co ADR
EJPRY
| — | Bhyvz | $23B |
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United States