Everyone, welcome back to our 32nd annual BofA Industrials, Transportation, Airlines Key Leaders Conference.
Wow, say that again.
No, thank you. So I'm Ken Hoekster. Welcome, everybody. Good morning. Next up, we have Canadian National CEO Tracy Robinson. We welcome Tracy back for her second time in four years. Also from CN in the audience is Stacy Alderson, IR for her third conference, so thank you very much for joining us. One special note here, they're unaware this is coming, but CN gets the first ever newly created 24-timer award, as they've now appeared at all 24 conferences that I have hosted.
My goodness.
They have become the only company to be a 24-timer. While this is the 32nd annual BofA Merrill conference, I was not here for the first eight. You are now the only company, as the other company that tied you all the way through pulled out this year. Thank you, we truly thank you.
It is an honor to accept this award on behalf of all of the employees of Canadian National Railway.
Given that you have provided me with CN socks, I now provide you with a Bank of America.
I was looking, Ken, and you mean even in this occasion.
I can't change that fast.
You did not on that.
I'm sorry about the Canadians, but now you'll have plenty of other Canadian hockey teams to root for.
Canadians, we got, we still got a few left in there.
With that, let me turn it over to Tracy for your thoughts on the state of the market and maybe throw in three key things you'd like everybody to take away from today.
Thanks, Ken, I'd be happy to, and thanks for inviting us for 24 consecutive years. We'll have to do something big next year on the 25th.
The 25th.
Decide to do it again. Listen, when we started out this year, we had a new Trump administration, and I think we all predicted with what was being contemplated on trade and tariffs and the like that it would be an interesting year and there would be lots of uncertainty, and it is playing out that way. Without a doubt, every week is a bit of a new piece of news, but we are, we continue to be optimistic that the trade deals are going to get done. Right? We are seeing, I think, some progress on that with some great news over the weekend on some progress with China. As we look at the year, still uncertainty, but here is the three things I would have you take away versus we have got a strong start on the year.
We had a Q1 that came in at 8% EPS growth, 20 basis point improvement in operating ratio, a little ahead of where we had planned it to be. We're halfway through Q2. Q2 is going to be our toughest compare given a really strong kind of Q2 last year. It's pretty much on plan. We may not get a lot of volume growth year-over-year in Q2, but we'll have earnings growth. The year is shaping up the way we expected it to and hoped it would. Number two, if you look at this railroad, it's running extremely well. The thing that we've benefited, we've built over the last few years is a level of resiliency in the operation. This operating model works for us. No matter what it hits, in February, it was some pretty tough winter weather. It bounces back very quickly.
Right now, we're running at velocity levels that we haven't seen in May in a number of years. I think in the quarter, we're at 212 car miles per day. Last 28 days, we're over 220. Dwell's good, customer service is very strong, and we're running the railroad tight from a resourcing perspective in the midst of all of that. The railroad's running well. The third thing I'd say is we're positioned well for the remainder of the year. We haven't seen a big impact so far from the tariffs. The biggest thing that was looming was the blank sailings from China on a container perspective. We had some great news over the weekend. We'll see if, you know, we expect that to kind of rectify itself. We'll see where this goes. With our CN-specific initiatives and some of what's going on in the markets in Canada, you know, we feel we're pretty well positioned on the year and we're holding our 10%-15% EPS growth target.
Good to hear, reiterate the target. The U.S. is in the midst of, well, what was, was in the midst of a trade war with China, Canada, Mexico, and the world. As CEO of a railroad with significant ops in Canada, the U.S., what does this look like to you as you resource plan? You know, how do you think about this? And then post the China agreement, what changes are you talking about with your shippers? Is it impacts on autos quickly, metals, coal, grain? How do we think about the change for Central Canada?
You know, I think whenever you're facing uncertainty, there's always some. I would say this year it's more than normal uncertainty around what trade will look like, what volumes will look like. What you do is you stay very close to your customers because they're the ones making the decisions around what markets they're going to try and get to. We have a tremendously strong network. We offer our customers access both to North American markets as well as global markets to the West, the East, and the South. We are staying very close to them. A number of them are talking about access to different kinds of markets depending on the way this all turns out. We remain optimistic that, as I said, the trade deals are going to get done. In uncertainty, stay close to your customers.
You make sure that you're working with them closely and you resource tightly, and we are. We are ready for, I think, any kind of scenario, and we're watching it weekly. Right now, we're pretty tight. We've resourced at the bottom end of the range of our volume guidance, but we are prepared to move if we need it and if we see it coming. We're, you know, we're doing some work with our customers right now in the container business to see how quickly those blank sailings may be filled and what that means for us from a growth perspective. I think it could be a very interesting tail end of the year here, depending on how the trade day. It's a 90-day pause, as you know, but I think that there's some guardrails over what happens from there. I think this is a very positive development over this last weekend.
Talking to, staying close to your customers, you think that given the air pocket, as we talked about, that's actually starting now, right? Goods that since the April 9th tariffs were put in place saw the void, we're seeing that now hit the shores.
It's hitting us a little later, right? I think it hits the U.S. earlier. For us, it's probably more towards the end of May.
End of May, okay.
Beginning of June, and then we'll see how quickly they can replenish that cycle.
Okay. Do you think there's a quick catch-up in terms of what?
You know, it depends. What we know is if they've got goods produced and in warehouses, it's three days to load and it's, you know, 10, 12, 14 days in transit across the ocean. It depends on how much, where they are in the manufacturing cycle. We're just trying to get a sense of that from the shipping lines and some of our customers now. It could be a matter of weeks or it could be a little bit longer depending on where they are on manufacturing.
Level set, let's take a step back, level set the geographic mix, right? Maybe just talk a little bit about what's from a CN point of view. You got, you know, a third overseas, a third transborder. Maybe just talk about what's Canadian domestic, U.S. domestic, so we can kind of level set.
As you say, it's a really diverse network and it's a diverse book of business, which I think is, it builds a level of resilience into our business. As you said, a third of our business goes across borders in North America. A third goes into international markets through ports. The other third is either wholly contained within the U.S. or wholly contained within Canada. If you think about the volumes, you know, from a tariff perspective that go across the North American border, 2/3 of those are southbound. That's petroleum products, it's some ag products and fertilizer, it's forest products, you know, so those are the nature of the commodities. If you think about it from a perspective of kind of a Chinese exposure, about 10% of our overall business is with China.
2% of that, or 2%, is between the U.S. and China. The rest of it is between Canada and China. About half of that would be the international business, the consumer goods. The other half is ag products and the bulk commodities that we move between China and Canada. That is a general split, so it is pretty diversified, which we think is a benefit.
You open up by reiterating your 10%-15% kind of EPS target. Talk about the bottom end and top end of your targets. What is covered by the CN-specific growth projects? And then, you know, how much of that is aided by the port strikes, labor strikes you had last year, and easier comps?
We've never, we're not expecting a tremendous lift from economic growth this year. We'd like it to be different, but it's not. We're modeling a slightly positive industrial production this year. When we put the range together, it was really contemplating kind of the range of outcomes of tariffs and trade and those types of things. If you pick a spot, you know, in the middle of our volume guidance, I think in the middle is roughly 3% or something, 50% of that volume this year will come from CN-specific initiatives. These are things, efforts that we have underway with our customers that are less tied to the state of the economy. We can talk about those if you like. About 1/3 of it is related to last year.
We had the labor issues at the ports and in the rails in Canada in the second half of the year. About 1/3 of the growth is going to be just the pickup from not having that this year. The final little bit is slightly positive kind of economic growth or growth in industrial production. That is the way we are modeling it. What would take us to the bottom or to the top of the range is more kind of the volume, the impacts from tariffs and trade and those types of things.
The midpoint, just to, you had 50% CN-specific, 1/3 based on easier comps, and then the rest. Seventeen percent is including growth and.
It's 5/6, yeah.
Growth in industrial production.
Yeah. We're seeing some of that, yeah.
Okay. That's the midpoint.
That's the midpoint.
The midpoint. So you did include economic growth in the midpoint.
Small amount of food.
Okay. Got it. Volumes are trending down, call it half a percent quarter date ahead of our down two on an RTM basis. Carloads are in line with our target. Maybe hit on a couple of commodities here. Just grain is up 14%, so a pretty good start. Is that catch-up? Is that weather? Is that good crop year? It is just grain for the quarter.
It was a good crop year in the crop year last year. We did have the issue in February as an industry where we had a pretty tough winter. Some of that is carry forward. It's running a little later than we would have expected it. At this point in time, we'll likely see the grain start to fall off, you know, end of May-ish as we look into the next crop year. We did well in this crop year. We are, you know, I think our market share is coming in about 52% or so, which is very good. As that crop year runs out, we're kind of in the midst of seeding right now. We'll see what it looks like for next year.
Volume level, moisture levels are good, but as my family of the farm always says, you've never so far harvested a crop before you seeded it. We have to wait and see how that works out. That's the grain story. All of the bulk is moving well. We got potash moving through St. John again, probably, you know, I don't know, five to nine trains a month. That's kind of, we've got the Quintet Coal Mine going. Coal is up. The bulk commodity groups are really strong. International, Rupert's up and will continue to be up even with the blank sailings up over Q4. We don't think it's going to be hit as much because we're getting a lift off the Tacoma volumes.
You know, with the new Gemini service, our market share now on the west coast of Canada and the ports is up to 65%. The real thing that changed in the Gemini service was Hapag is now, it's the only thing I think I changed in the Gemini service is Hapag is now calling on Rupert. That's volume that's coming up off the U.S. That is a very positive thing. Domestic is showing a little bit of strength. It's up year-over-year. If you look at the industrial, we had a slow start on sand in the quarter because we had a, we lost a bridge to fire up in the Grand Cache sub where the frac sand goes. It queued up, but it is now kind of rushing back and catching up. Petroleum products, a little bit light right now.
We've lost with the hurricane and the flooding early in the quarter. Some of the crude oil went into the pipeline, but that's now surging and catching up again. NGLs will be strong. We've got a year-over-year offset of, you know, some, there was a pipeline that was out in Winnipeg that we got a big lift from last year. So there's puts and takes, but it's shaping up to be not a bad year.
That's great. Let's flip over to pricing. You know, you've got your thoughts on level of underlying yield growth. You know, if we take away mix and fuel surcharges, are you confident you're still well above rail cost inflation? Revenue per RTM was up sequentially in the first quarter, up 3% year-over-year. Should we continue to see sequential growth in pricing?
Short answer is yes. I think the revenue per RTM is always a difficult proxy for price because, as you know, you get FX impacts, you get fuel impacts, you get accessorial charges, you get the impacts of mix, and then you have just pricing. It is not the best proxy, but I would say that in the first quarter, Remi and his team did an excellent job. Some really strong pricing ahead of plan, which is good, and it kind of leverages what is a really good network and some strong service. You know, it may not be as strong in the rest of the year. It was in Q1, but we are managing our costs very closely. We have an eye on the impact of both inflation and tariffs on the materials and what we purchase. Pricing will come in ahead of rail inflation this year.
I totally agree with you. We should go back to when I knew you at your old firm and everybody used to report same-store sales. If you want to start breaking out core price.
We did indeed, Ken, and that got very complicated. We'd end up in long conversation with you on same-store sales, but you'll see it come out. The good news is you'll see it come out in margins at the end of the year.
I agree. That's how we'd see it at the end. But go back to the point though, is pricing above inflation now?
It is.
It is.
It will be for the year.
It will be for the year. Okay. Regulated grain, let's go into one of the commodities here specifically, right? About 42% of your grain revenues. We just saw the annual increase, about 1.7% for regulated grain, a bit below CP's. Can you explain that to the audience? Why does CP get 3%? You get 1.7%?
I wish I could explain the formula. The Canadian regulated grain, of course, operates under a formula that the regulator sets. It's a bit opaque. There are lots of inputs. It does include fuel. You will see it move up. It's delayed or down relative to fuel. It's based on investment and a few other things. It is never perfectly clear exactly how the formula comes out with the numbers that it does. I would tell you, if you look back last year, we had a 5.4%. If you look back the year before, we had a 12% increase. If you look at the compounding of those increases on regulated grain, I like our position right now.
Yeah. To explain, I guess, is that 1.7%, does that outpace your cost of provision as well? Just to understand that.
When we think about the pricing on the total book against the cost on the total book, we'll come in with total rail pricing above inflation.
It's back to just the totals.
Yeah. There is a lag on the grain without a doubt. When we were up 12% a couple of years ago and 5% last year, this compounds on top of it. You kind of have to look at it over time.
Okay. Cost side of the equation, employees in this environment, do you see flattish at 24,500-25,000 employees? Do you allow for attrition given the macro? How do you think about it as CEO?
We're running tight. We made a very conscious decision coming out of last year that we would size our resources, whether it be people or assets, towards the bottom end of the volume range that we gave. We thought that was the prudent thing to do and we're going to be conservative in that. That means we've got about 550 or so people right now. It's been higher, but we've had 550 or so right now furloughed. As we look forward, it really depends on the view of volumes, right? It's good news out of China. We'll probably have more containers than we would have otherwise. We're looking at the fall.
We do see growth in the fall and we'll be making decisions here over the next month or so around whether we need to kind of furlough more or invite some folks back or how we need to resource. It is a week-to-week assessment based on the volumes that we see coming in. Overall, I would say you can probably expect, as you said, flattish on the year, year-over-year. We have increased some of the, we made a decision a number of years ago to outsource some of our engineering work at a higher cost per unit. As part of our engineering efforts, we're re-insourcing that work. You see it in an increase in non-T&E FDEs, but you will see it in a reduction in cost per unit cost of that work as well. There is a little bit of different things moving around there.
Yeah. That's great. And the 550, I'm sorry, the 550 furloughs, you were saying that that is kind of a base level. You're increasing it. What is?
We had it was higher. We've taken it down to start to move some of the growth that we saw. Right now, we will, and we have a certain level of attrition as well. As we call back, as we see that attrition take place, I would say if things stay the same, you're not going to see it move very much. If we see growth, then we'll call back and if we have to, we'll do a little bit of hiring. It's very much specific to where you are on the network, right? If we get a good grain crop, it'll be, and if we get the containers start to move again, it'll be Western Canada. You know, we've got, we're well resourced for the potash going down in the east. It will depend on where in the system we need them.
We have an ability in Canada as well to move employees around. It's called shortage. We can take from the east and move them into the west under certain conditions for a period of time. We also have the ability in Canada to handle surge volumes by putting management employees on trains. It gives us an ability to manage some of the surges without taking folks off furlough.
One thing always amazes me in following the railroad industry is how quickly you can flex up and down based on activity relative to other transport subsectors, which struggle despite how fixed you would think a railroad is with track and locomotives and cars and people. Let's jump over to the bottom line there. Operating ratio, second quarter typically improves about 400 basis points sequentially, which would indicate a sub-60 level. You and Ghislain noted you expect a little bit less given some of the costs that have come in. Talk about factors impacting second quarter and your thoughts on moving then sub-60 into the second half.
I think, you know, one of the reasons the four hundred basis points change is that we're doing much better managing through winter. The resilience of the network, you don't see the operating ratios up at the levels that perhaps they once were. The guys did a great job in managing through February, keeping our network fluid through some pretty tough conditions and getting it back up to the kind of levels of velocity that you're seeing now. We're pretty happy with the result in Q1. Now, as you know, we don't manage specifically to operating ratio, but what we're managing to is earnings growth over time. You want earnings growth as efficiently as possible. If you're not running an efficient operation, you're not going to grow effectively. These two things kind of move hand in hand.
As we think about the growth going forward, you know, and what kind of margins we can produce, it depends on a number of things. One is total volumes. Volumes are magic in a high fixed cost environment. You know, the higher we won't oversell our network, but the more volumes we can get moving, particularly in certain parts of our network, the more margin that we run. If you think about the mix, different commodity lines draw different margins. Mix can, as you know, move margins around. Then we have pricing and we have cost management. If you look out over the longer term, you know, when we look at the book of business that we're growing, we believe this is a network that should run at an operating ratio at the end of the day that starts with a five.
For this year, I think that we've stated there was, given all the labor issues that happened last year and the fires, you know, we kind of counted a couple hundred basis points of operating ratio that shouldn't be there and we'll call all that back this year.
All right. I'm sorry. You said start with a five or mid-50s? I didn't quite hear what you said.
I said start with a five and we don't guide an operating ratio. I think that was it. That was what I was.
Thank you for that insight. Thoughts on network resiliency? How many locomotives and cars do you have stored now? You talked about the 550 employees furloughed. Talk about the ability to bounce back in the network, right? That's something that CN has always been known for in terms of leading the group in that resiliency. How do you think the network is set up now?
You know, it's the gift out of the unfortunate kind of series of the last year and a half on port strikes and labor issues on the rail and forest fires and tough winters is that we've been able to demonstrate that the operating model we have is the one that works for us. We've got the right team on it. They keep it fluid and the performance bounces back pretty quickly. That does rely on our ability to move resources, whether they be people or assets in and out as we need. We're quick to put down equipment when we need to, locomotives and cars. We're quick to kind of, as you noted, to move people in and out. Right now, we've got about 80 locomotives stored.
We've probably still got about 4,000 cars set aside that, you know, are available to us if and as we need them. We like to run the place lean. It is running fast right now. If your velocity is high, it means that you need less equipment to move the same volume. That resilience, we get a significant payback out of that.
When you talk about the, I'm sorry, 80 locomotives stored, is that the entire amount that's left post-PSR that you've got still able to tap into? Is that your normal stored? I guess maybe what's your local philosophy? Do you need to go out? You're buying some new or are you doing refurbs?
Right now, we're doing refurbs, right? And we find that the most efficient payback on our capital. I think we've got 60 or 63 coming out this year, refurbished. We're not buying new, at least right now. I don't see us doing that over the next number of years. That's a very efficient way to deploy our capital. The efficiency and the availability of those locomotives compare very favorably. If we've got 80 locomotives down, we also have, as you know, in the industry, you know, we can borrow locomotive hours off other railroads or loan locomotive hours to other railroads. We use that in the first quarter and we have it going the other way right now. There's always a little bit of a balance in that as well. We're pretty fluid when it comes to locomotive.
Our availability numbers now with the work that Pat is doing on mechanical, our availability numbers now are hitting levels that we have not seen in a long time, which is good. If you want those, if you are going to have locomotives, you want them reliable and you want them available. They are there when we need them.
Sometimes I put my Wabtec hat on just to understand the locomotive market. So car miles per day was 226 last week.
You're watching.
Three-year high in May. Is that just weather rebound? Is that a structural service improvement? How should we read the service rebound?
We are at a point in the railroad right now where we have no significant issues on weather or interruptions on the network. At the beginning of the quarter, early April, we had a bridge that went down and we had the implications and flooding from the wind event down in the south. Right now, we're running smooth. This is something that with the volumes that we're at, this is the kind of velocity we like because it allows us to move more volume with less equipment. That drops income to the bottom line. It allows us to service our customers effectively and consistently.
Okay. Yeah, look, that's a great sign of what can come when we get the volumes, right? If you can run the.
Exactly. You know, our dwell is down versus last year. You know, our customer service levels are high. Everything is poised to be able to be nimble and take advantage of the opportunities that we're working on.
Great. CapEx plan. You reiterated, I think, $3.5 billion, $3.4 billion, about 19% of revenues. Is that, how should we think about that? Is there a catch-up CapEx in there? Is that you mentioned you're not ordering, you're doing some remands. How do we think about that level of CapEx?
What we're trying to do, you know, you spend CapEx on different things. One is the maintenance of the network as you consume it, you need to replace it. Our objective there, and this is what Pat and his team are working on, is to replace it at an ever more efficient level. They are eating all their FX and all their inflation impacts this year. I, you know, I think we'll ask them to continue to do that. What they're looking to do is work with the network operations to make sure that we've got works blocks planned where they should be and we're planning our work. We've insourced a lot of the engineering labor.
We're running, now it's early in the season, but we're running now at double-digit improvements in productivity year-over-year in things like tie installation and rail grinding and welding and those types of things. We've got a great start. We should be able to get more. The target is to get more for every dollar that we do in maintenance CapEx. You'll see that kind of flatline. We'll just get more work done with the same capital. The remainder of the capital, of course, competes. Everyone competes for that. That's growth. That's return-seeking capital for expansion where we need it across the network, whether it's intermodal and facilities that we're building, you know, in Milton and down in Chicagoland, whether it's some direct customer facilities, whether it's the lines up north.
We can continue to grow our frac sand franchise wherever it is that specific growth capital attracts a certain minimum hurdle rate from an expansion perspective. That is the way that we are approaching, you know, our capital expenditures as we go forward.
Totally switching subject, but you're set to host a trip to Prince Rupert in two to three weeks. New news is that kind of showing off the scaling growth of intermodal, out the gas on the chemical side, LPG side. What's the target there?
Rupert is, what we want to demonstrate is that Rupert is going to be a big part of our future growth, right? I think the international intermodal story is pretty well known there. We've got a great partner in DP and a great partner in the port of Prince Rupert. We've got capacity there. You know, we're continuing to build back our U.S. kind of volumes. We're at 50/50 now with the Gemini Alliance now kind of calling on, and Hapag now calling in the Gemini Alliance, calling on Rupert. In fact, they used Rupert in their marketing materials for the Gemini Alliance because their whole pitch is they want to offer the fastest and on-time service. Rupert offers that, particularly for the U.S. You know, there's a great kind of growth story.
We're now up to 65% market share on the West Coast in the international ports. A big part of that is the benefits that Rupert offers on international, whether it's economic or whether it's service advantages. There is a great story there, but it's not the only story. We are doing some things in support with our partners in support of the international portfolio and its growth. CanExport, which you guys will see kind of the development that's coming there, is the next level of expansion of being able to stuff empty containers going back. We move, for example, 3,000 car loads of plastic pellets into Rupert to be put into containers last year. That's going to grow by a multiple. You have grains that go up to Rupert to be put into containers. That's continuing to grow. You're also going to see the Intermode X facility.
That is going to, that is a facility that is being set up to transload the containers in 53s as they come in. We can offer that service to containers to be restuffed and go back immediately. All of that is in support of a growing international franchise through Rupert. Rupert is much more than that. As you know, we have a grain facility there. We have a coal facility there. That is where the quintet growth is going to go through. We have an ever-growing liquids franchise. The NGL facility, Reef, the next expansion is finished, I think the end of next year. You are likely to see continued expansions from that. There are discussions in Canada right now with the new administration around lifting the tanker ban that is in place in Northern British Columbia.
That opens all kinds of conversations around other kinds of liquids that could be exported through the port of Prince Rupert. There is a lot going on up there. You know, we are pretty focused with our partners on what that can bring. We are focused on making sure that our network can facilitate that growth as well. You will see all that.
If you have the chance to get up to Prince Rupert, not easy to get to, but definitely a fun and amazing site to see when you go on the rail, when you go on the bus and tour around the facility.
I think they're going on the, you're going to get a view from the water this year.
On the rail, on the water. Yeah, yeah. Talk about the Falcon partnership with Union Pacific, Ferromex to drive cross-border business. CP certainly talks about MMX a bunch, the one consolidated network flow. How is the competitive structure? How are the service levels compared? How do we think about the competitive environment?
The thing that I'm most impressed with, whether it is the Falcon or whether it's the Link service that we have in place with the NS, is the ability that we've demonstrated, which we've never been able to before as an industry around the consistency and the service levels. We're not losing interest. We're not looking, you know, turning away. Our Monterey to Toronto is consistently at five, 5.1 days, which is truck competitive. We've priced it accordingly. Now, the volume is growing, but it's growing slowly. This is going to be, this is a long game in turning that market around and picking up again trucks that are moving at distances that they shouldn't move on rail. The first step of that is getting that fundamental, consistent, predictable service in place. I would say that we're doing a tremendous job with that.
Talk about, you're also working with Norfolk Southern to push into Atlanta and Kansas City meeting points. Your peers working with CSX. How are those projects? It sounds like just you're talking about the consistency of them.
The Link service on the NS is now up to levels of Falcon, right? That is largely a product that also is targeting Canada. These are truckload volumes that would move from Mexico or the southern parts of the United States all the way up into Canada that we can offer a competitive service on.
Yeah. You both talked about Gemini, both your peer in Canada, yourself with different, I guess, to Vancouver, to Rupert. Can you talk about volumes in terms of what's going on in Rupert?
The volumes that are, so Hapag now, Hapag had not been at Rupert before, right? If you look at Maersk and Hapag, all of this is the same except Hapag is now calling through this, the Gemini Alliance on Rupert. Those volumes that are coming through Rupert, the big increase is coming off the U.S., but they are like the Tacoma, Port of Tacoma, but they are going into the U.S. This is what we want at Rupert. Right now we are running at probably 50/50 Toronto, Canadian-U.S. volumes. You know, we want to hit 60/40, even 70/30 because of the strength of the service offering out of Prince Rupert.
70 to?
70 to the U.S.
To the U.S. Okay. Your recent purchase of Island Northern. Congratulations. Got complete, done. Do you see more regional opportunities like that? Is there anything, you know, I do not know, anything still left on to eke out of the EJ&E on operational benefits? Anything about these?
Listen, I think we're always looking, we are an organization that believes that the next level of success is going to come through partnerships, right? We have got a tremendously strong network. It becomes even stronger if you look at it in concert with whether it's short lines or whether it's our partnerships with the class ones or any other organizations. We do have a stream of work that's focused on how do we grow with and through others like that. You are going to see a little bit of more action on that. We're happy with the acquisition that we made. We think it brings a lot of benefits to the ag, the biodiesel kind of customers in that area. It's additive for us because we have capacity on the southern part of our network. That's all good.
We're just in the midst of integrating that now. There will be revenue synergies. There'll be some cost synergies. It's small from a kind of scale perspective, but it's additive. To your question on the EJ&E, man, that's a gift that keeps on giving. You know, and it's a tremendously strong asset. We have basically a bypass around Chicago that nobody else has. We can get around there in 24 hours. The work that we've been doing last year and this year in EJ&E is going to allow us three quarters of those trains. Now we're going to have one less crew. We're going to be able to move a crew change from that. You know, we go faster between Stevens Point and Chicago. That area will be able to take out a crew change point. We finished that this year, which is going to make it even faster.
You're talking about crew change on efficiency, not going autonomous or.
Crew change on efficiency.
Crew on efficiency. Okay. Last year, just letting you know, minimal benefits from buybacks with the stock where it is. You did a minimal $100 million in the first quarter. Should we think of ramping that few billion dollars?
We're in the market now. We'll probably be a little bit more opportunistic as we go forward, as you say, given the prices that we're, you know, that the stock's at. You know, we have a program in place and we're going to continue to look at it, but clearly it's a buying opportunity.
Yeah. Leverage at just over 2.5x that you're.
Right now? Right now, I mean, at times when it's a great deal of uncertainty out there, you always love a really healthy balance sheet, but we're going to continue to look at it over time and just evaluate what's right for us.
Tracy, so if I can appreciate the thoughts, if I can just sum up real quick, tell me what I'm missing, right? You reiterated the 10%-15% EPS growth, 50% half from CN-specific projects, about 1/3 from easy comps and the strikes a year ago, the rest from IP growth. That gets us to the midpoint pricing over cost, flattish employees. Second quarter OR you gave me the specific targets. We do not need to rehash. While you said there is no target here, typically you are having better first quarter weather or reaction around weather. The improvement might not be as great as you have seen in the past. Long-term target still starts with a five. I asked you if it would be mid-five. You reiterated that you said it starts with a five. Record car miles per day over the past three years and you focused on the good operations. Anything else?
We're ready for this year. We're happy to be here. We're only disappointed you didn't wear the CN socks today in celebration of our 24th.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.