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NSC, Norfolk Southern Corporation

Railroads capital-intensive

Norfolk Southern Corporation is an Atlanta, Georgia-based company that owns a major freight railroad, Norfolk Southern Railway Company.

We are primarily engaged in the rail transportation of raw materials, intermediate products, and finished goods primarily in the Southeast, East, and Midwest and, via interchange with rail carriers, to and from the rest of the United States (U.S.).

Our system reaches many manufacturing plants, electric generating facilities, mines, distribution centers, transload facilities, and other businesses located in our service area.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

NSC · Norfolk Southern Corporation

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$12.2B

+0.5% YoY · 4% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $12.2B 5-yr avg $12.1B

Operating margin 33.5% 5-yr avg 34.1%

ROIC 10% 5-yr avg 11%

Owner-earnings margin 19% 5-yr avg 22%

Free cash flow margin 13% 5-yr avg 16%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Merchandise (63%), Intermodal (25%) and Coal (12%).
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 34% through the cycle, a wide margin for the work it does — whether that reflects a durable edge or one that can fade is what the record weighs. Capital spending runs about 17% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on volume and pricing against the operating ratio. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 11%). By owner earnings: roughly 23% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Merchandise is 63% of revenue, with Intermodal the other meaningful segment at 25%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Merchandise63%$7.7B
Intermodal25%$3.0B
Coal12%$1.5B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$9.9B	$10.6B	$11.5B	$11.3B	$9.8B	$11.1B	$12.7B	$12.2B	$12.1B	$12.2B	$12.2B	RevenueRevenue
$3.0B	$3.5B	$4.0B	$4.0B	$3.0B	$4.4B	$4.8B	$2.9B	$4.1B	$4.4B	$4.1B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
30.4%	33.4%	34.6%	35.3%	30.7%	39.9%	37.7%	23.5%	33.6%	35.8%	33.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$1.7B	$5.4B	$2.7B	$2.7B	$2.0B	$3.0B	$3.3B	$1.8B	$2.6B	$2.9B	$2.7B	Net incomeNet inc.
35%	—	23%	22%	20%	23%	21%	21%	21%	22%	22%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$3.0B	$3.3B	$3.7B	$3.9B	$3.6B	$4.3B	$4.2B	$3.2B	$4.1B	$4.4B	$3.8B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	DepreciationDeprec.
$341M	($3.2B)	($44M)	$31M	$470M	$69M	($269M)	$54M	$77M	$95M	($314M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$1.9B	$1.7B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.9B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.2B	$2.1B	CapexCapex
19.1%	16.3%	17.0%	17.9%	15.3%	13.2%	15.3%	19.1%	19.6%	18.1%	17.5%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$2.0B	$2.2B	$2.6B	$2.8B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$1.9B	$2.7B	$3.0B	$2.4B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
20.3%	20.8%	22.9%	24.4%	25.4%	25.0%	23.5%	15.5%	22.3%	24.4%	19.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.1B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$1.9B	$2.1B	$2.8B	$2.3B	$852M	$1.7B	$2.2B	$1.6B	Free cash flowFCF
11.6%	14.5%	15.5%	16.6%	21.9%	25.0%	17.8%	7.0%	13.8%	17.7%	13.3%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$695M	$703M	$844M	$949M	$960M	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$803M	$1.0B	$2.8B	$2.1B	$1.4B	$3.4B	$3.1B	$622M	$0	$534M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
9%	14%	12%	12%	9%	13%	14%	8%	11%	11%	10%	ROICROIC
13%	33%	17%	18%	14%	22%	26%	14%	18%	18%	17%	Return on equityROE
8%	29%	12%	12%	7%	14%	17%	5%	10%	11%	9%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$956M	$690M	$358M	$580M	$1.1B	$839M	$456M	$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.3B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$945M	$955M	$1.0B	$920M	$848M	$976M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$988M	$1.1B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.0B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$1.7B	Accounts payablePayables
($270M)	($446M)	($496M)	($508M)	($168M)	($375M)	($145M)	($491M)	($635M)	($875M)	($572M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$2.3B	$2.1B	$1.9B	$2.1B	$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.0B	$3.3B	$3.2B	$3.2B	$3.0B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.3B	$2.5B	$2.6B	$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.5B	$2.6B	$2.6B	$3.5B	$3.8B	$3.3B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.0×	0.8×	0.7×	0.9×	1.1×	0.9×	0.8×	1.2×	0.9×	0.8×	0.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$34.9B	$35.7B	$36.2B	$37.9B	$38.0B	$38.5B	$38.9B	$41.7B	$43.7B	$45.2B	$45.1B	Total assetsAssets
$10.2B	$9.8B	$11.1B	$12.2B	$12.7B	$13.8B	$15.2B	$17.2B	$17.2B	$17.1B	$17.1B	Total debtDebt
$9.3B	$9.1B	$10.8B	$11.6B	$11.6B	$13.0B	$14.7B	$15.6B	$15.6B	$15.6B	$15.7B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
5.3×	6.4×	7.1×	6.6×	4.8×	6.9×	6.9×	3.9×	5.0×	5.5×	5.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$12.4B	$16.4B	$15.4B	$15.2B	$14.8B	$13.6B	$12.7B	$12.8B	$14.3B	$15.5B	$15.8B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
											Per share
296M	290M	280M	266M	257M	248M	236M	227M	226M	225M	225M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$33.41	$36.35	$40.89	$42.53	$38.15	$44.91	$54.10	$53.46	$53.55	$54.06	$54.16	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$5.62	$18.62	$9.51	$10.25	$7.84	$12.11	$13.88	$8.03	$11.58	$12.75	$11.87	EPS (diluted)EPS
$6.77	$7.56	$9.36	$10.37	$9.68	$11.23	$12.74	$8.27	$11.92	$13.17	$10.47	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.88	$5.27	$6.33	$7.05	$8.35	$11.23	$9.65	$3.75	$7.38	$9.57	$7.19	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$2.35	$2.42	$3.01	$3.57	$3.74	$4.14	$4.95	$5.39	$5.39	$5.39	$5.39	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$6.38	$5.94	$6.96	$7.60	$5.82	$5.93	$8.27	$10.23	$10.52	$9.78	$9.50	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$41.92	$56.35	$54.83	$57.17	$57.64	$54.98	$54.04	$56.20	$63.19	$69.01	$70.24	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+5.5%/yr	+7.2%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+7.7%/yr	+6.4%/yr
EPS	+9.5%/yr	+10.2%/yr
Dividends / share	+9.7%/yr	+7.6%/yr
Capital spending / share	+4.9%/yr	+10.9%/yr
Book value / share	+5.7%/yr	+3.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

225Mpeak FY2016

ROIC

11%low FY2023

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

5.2×peak FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$3.0Bowner earningsvs.$2.9Bnet incomelow FY2023

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $3.0B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $1.4B it takes just to hold its position. It put $811M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $2.2B.

Reported net income$2.9B

Owner earnings$3.0B · 24% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$2.9B	$2.6B	$1.8B	$3.3B	$3.0B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.4B	+$1.4B	+$1.3B	+$1.2B	+$1.2B
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$95M	+$77M	+$54M	−$269M	+$69M
Cash from operations	$4.4B	$4.1B	$3.2B	$4.2B	$4.3B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$1.4B	−$1.4B	−$1.3B	−$1.2B	−$1.5B
Owner earnings	$3.0B	$2.7B	$1.9B	$3.0B	$2.8B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$811M	−$1.0B	−$1.0B	−$727M	—
Free cash flow	$2.2B	$1.7B	$852M	$2.3B	$2.8B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	24%	22%	15%	24%	25%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $1.4B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $811M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 5.5×

Comfortable

Operating income $4.4B ÷ interest expense $792M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $15.6B · 3.6× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $1.5B − debt $17.1B

What this means
Netting $1.5B of cash and short-term investments against $17.1B of debt leaves $15.6B owed, about 3.6× a year's operating profit (3.9× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 11%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median, range 8%–14%; 11% latest = NOPAT $3.4B ÷ invested capital $31.1B

Industry peers: median 14%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 11% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 23%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 15%–25%; latest $3.0B = operating cash $4.4B − maintenance capex $1.4B

Industry peers: median 26%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 24% of revenue this year, a 23% median across 10 years. It chose to put $811M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $2.2B — the gap is investment, not weakness.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.52×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $4.4B ÷ net income $2.9B

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 59%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $1.7B ÷ Owner Earnings $3.0B

What this means
Of $3.0B Owner Earnings, $1.7B (59%) went back to shareholders, $1.2B dividends, $534M buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 1.58×

Expanding

Capex $2.2B ÷ depreciation $1.4B

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 3 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $12.2B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.85×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $17.1B vs ($577M) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −25%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $10.87/share (latest year $12.79), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $69.22/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 33% → 31% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing claims pricing power in its strongest form — price raised, volume held — yet the margin here has not widened to match. The claim leads the record; weigh them together.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 33% early, 31% lately, median 34%.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +3%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 3% a year over the record.
Worst year 2023 · 23.5% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −3.0%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share, return on capital, the long term — and the record has held; the words and the results are of a piece.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$3.0B

Cash & short-term investments$1.3B
Receivables$1.1B
Other current assets$560M

Current liabilities$3.3B

Debt due within a year$607M
Accounts payable$1.7B
Other current liabilities$1.0B

Current ratio0.91×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.91×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.40×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($311M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. What it owes in the near term is money to suppliers and customers (payables and deferred revenue), not to lenders, so the balance sheet is funded by operating float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.

Debt due this year vs. cash$607M due · $1.3B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+0.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$15.8Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($26.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$11.1B$218M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'27$625M

'28$602M

'29$611M

'30$600M

Bars scaled to the largest single year.

Due in the next 12 months$625Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.2Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$625Min 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Due over the next five years$2.4Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $17.1B of debt in all

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$1.3B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$3.0B

Together, against $625M due next year6.9×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $4.3B against the $625M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 6.9 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $37.6B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$19.4B · 52%
Dividends$10.0B · 27%
Buybacks$15.8B · 42%

Returned to owners$25.8B
102% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $10.0B as dividends and $15.8B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$7.6B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $7.6B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $10.2B to $17.1B.
Average price paid for buybacks$189.10
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 84M shares were bought for $15.8B, about $189.10 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $87.28 (2016) to $266.93 (2021), and 2021, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($3.4B).
Net change in share count−24.0%
The diluted count fell from 296M to 225M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$5.39/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 10% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained—
Not read here: owner earnings are negative over the span, or the company returned nearly all its earnings rather than retaining them, so there is too little retained to measure a return on.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	James Squires	$14.0M	$25.1M	$2.8B
2022	Alan H. Shaw	$9.8M	$10.4M	$3.0B
2022	James Squires	$9.6M	$2.0M	$3.0B
2023	Alan H. Shaw	$13.4M	$4.1M	$1.9B
2024	Alan H. Shaw	$11.9M	−$5.7M	$2.7B
2024	Mark R. George	$9.0M	$9.1M	$2.7B
2025	Mark R. George	$16.2M	$13.4M	$3.0B

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Norfolk Southern Corporation is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$10.2B → $17.1B
Debt rose from $10.2B to $17.1B while owner earnings went from about $2.3B to $2.5B — about 4.5 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 6.8 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Railroads

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
UNPUnion Pacific Corporation	$24.5B	—	39.6%	16%	29%
CSXCSX Corporation	$14.1B	—	38.6%	14%	26%
NSCNorfolk Southern Corporation	$12.2B	—	34.1%	11%	23%
FIPFTAI Infrastructure Inc. Common Stock	$503M	—	-26.0%	-3%	-47%
Group median	—	—	36.3%	13%	25%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Norfolk Southern Corporation has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Norfolk Southern Corporation earns about $2.8B on its 23.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 24.4% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($2.8B) Net of stock comp Steady-state · maintenance capex ($2.4B)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−1%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+4%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $1.6B on 225M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-03-31; net debt $15.7B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($2.1B) runs well above depreciation ($1.4B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $2.4B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh NSC against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/NSC, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← NSA its page in the Manual NSIT →

Industry order: ← FIP the Railroads chapter UNP →