Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to Deutsche Bank's 2021 Transportation Conference. My name is Amit Mehrachra, as I'm sure everybody's sick of me saying by now. I'm the Transportation and Shipping Analyst here at Deutsche Bank. We heard this morning from Union Pacific, this afternoon from CN and KCS. We just heard from CSX, and now I'm very pleased to welcome Norfolk Southern rounding out our rail day here at the conference. Joining us from the company, we're very fortunate to have Chief Operating Officer Cindy Sanborn, Chief Financial Officer Mark George. Cindy, Mark, really appreciate you joining us today. Lots to chat about. I think you guys have some prepared remarks there. You are. I can see you now. I know you think you guys have some prepared remarks. Thanks again. I'm going to hand it over to you, and then we'll get it right into Q&A.
Hey, thanks, Amit. Good afternoon, everyone. We've got some presentation materials that are posted on our website, so we would encourage everyone to go on there and open it up as we'll be referencing those specific slide numbers. Some typical housekeeping we'll just start off with and that we're going to have also on the site and available here are some reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures. We'll make certain forward-looking statements which are subject to risk and uncertainties, could differ materially from actual results. Refer to our quarterly and annual reports that are on file with the SEC for those discussions and what we view as the more important risk and uncertainties. With that, if we look and go to slide three, is it?
Yep.
Amit, as you know from our second quarter call, we reported a solid set of results here which included record performance for net income, earnings per share, operating income, and operating ratio for which we delivered an all-time best 58.3% in the quarter. We saw a dramatic year-over-year improvement in both revenue and volume, up 34% and 25% respectively. That outpaced an 11% growth in expenses, resulting in great leverage for us in the quarter. Importantly, as we shared with you, we are very focused on improving sequentially. You can see evidence of that focus in our results as we held expenses flat quarter over quarter on a 5% increase in volume and 3%, sorry, 6% increase in revenue. Of course, we're very pleased to finally break through that 60% operating ratio floor here in the second quarter.
You see significant year-over-year and sequential improvement in the OR, even though 200 basis points of that improvement was from an outsized land sale in the quarter, but still excluding that, outstanding performance in our operating ratio here in the second quarter. Now, as you know, a key element of our operating ratio improvement comes from continued productivity. We have been driving that since the launch of our top 21 operating plan, which we started in the third quarter of 2019. As you see on slide four here, workforce productivity has been a strong driver of our improved performance over the past two and a half years, and that continued in the second quarter. GTMs per employee were up 22%, and you can see a corresponding 660 basis point improvement in the operating ratio.
Our workforce is actually 8% smaller than it was a year ago, handling 25% more volume than we did a year ago. In fact, our workforce is down 23% since the launch of our top 21 operating plan. We remain committed to drive further productivity improvements into the business. You will hear some of the hows from Cindy today, and that will continue to help us drive our operating ratio down as we move toward narrowing the gap with our rail peers. If you turn to slide five, you can see we started 2021 really with two solid quarters, and we have achieved record first-half results, including a sub-60 OR for the first six months, as well as record EPS. Expense growth has been limited to only 3% on 13% volume gains and 15% revenue growth.
This performance through the first half has really translated into very strong free cash flow that you'll see on slide six, where we also had a record through the first half. That was aided in part by very strong operating cash generation, but also modest property additions through the first half of $627 million. All of this translated to a 99% free cash flow conversion through six months. The strong cash generation and the spending restraint afforded us significantly higher shareholder distributions through six months, exceeding $2 billion and an increase of $807 million versus prior year. That's thanks in part to two dividend increases that we had this year, as well as a meaningful increase in our shareholder repurchase activity.
With that, let me turn it over to Cindy, where she'll walk us through some of our PSR-related productivity measures and some of the other topics we're working on.
All right. Thanks, Mark. I'm on slide seven. We reported another quarter of double-digit improvement in train weight and length, both of which are now at record levels. We did this with a much smaller pool of resources compared to pre-PSR. For example, our active locomotives are down by 20 points on the slide, and the workforce, as Mark mentioned, is 23% smaller than when we first launched our top 21 operating plan in July of 2019. Over this time, we've made a number of strategic changes to our network, including the conversion of six hump yards into flat switching. In addition, we make tactical iterations of our train plans frequently, fostering our ability to build out longer trains while reducing locomotive counts and dramatically increasing workforce productivity. Of course, technology is also a big factor in our gains, and you can see that on slide eight.
We are getting better and better as we streamline internal and external business processes to enhance our product customer service model, as well as operational efficiencies. As we talked previously, investments in technology are expected to drive the next phase of improvements in five key areas as we enhance our competitiveness with trucks to gain a larger portion of that $800 billion truck market that you've heard Alan talk so much about. Those five areas are service quality and experience, driving growth, improving sustainability, improving operating safety and performance, and of course, productivity and efficiency. Now turning to our service metrics on slide nine, you can see that while we still have work to do, we are making steady sequential progress on our fluidity metrics this quarter as we recovered from several operational disruptions in June.
Through simplification of our plans, consolidation of our resources, and technology-driven process changes, we've resumed improvement and are committed to further progress for our customers, allowing opportunities to take on additional traffic with the same or fewer resources. Importantly, these operational enhancements provide a tremendous benefit to our fuel efficiency programs, as you see on slide 10. There is still plenty of runway ahead, which we're attacking from multiple angles, including our continued DC to AC conversion of our locomotive fleet, implementation of and utilization of energy management technology, and also maximizing horsepower efficiency. Those are just a few examples. In just last month, we've established a new organizational alignment with ownership of fuel efficiency across the entire company and accountability of our progress through a collaborative strategy with mechanical, transportation, network planning, and many others as we strive to make a lasting impact on our company, customers, and community.
It's not just about saving dollars. It's about doing the right thing for the environment. Turning to slide 11. From environmental stewardship to the safety and development of our entire team, we are committed to bold leadership and deliberate action. In just the last few months, we've taken our industry-leading sustainability efforts to new heights as we became the first North American railroad to issue green bonds. In addition, we established a science-based target for greenhouse gas emissions reductions that is consistent with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Earlier this month, we released our 14th annual report on corporate responsibility, where we articulate our five-pillar sustainability strategy to set measurable company-wide sustainability goals with clear action plans. Our momentum and resolve on fuel efficiency, as an example, gave us confidence in establishing the science-based targets announced last month.
Sustainability is a core competency of ours and one we will leverage as we move forward to grow profitably. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to wrap up with our outlook.
Thanks, Cindy. If you turn to slide 12, this is where we're going to just talk a little bit about our 2021 growth outlook. We do expect that the current economic momentum will continue through the balance of the year. Favorable conditions still persist in the consumer and manufacturing sectors. The stage, frankly, is set for continued growth in the balance of the year, in part thanks to the tight trucking environment, but also very strong energy demand from the red-hot economic activity. Of course, there's always going to be some uncertainties to consider. We are closely watching these, in particular the semiconductor shortage, as well as other supply chain disruptions within our market sectors. Regarding coal specifically, despite near-term upside in export thermal markets, our utility coal continues to be in secular decline. We've got unit retirements we're dealing with, as well as limited coal availability.
Overall, more positives than negatives for the second half of the year based on the current economic outlook. The feedback from our customers is very positive. They are increasingly confident about the current demand environment. Net-net, we feel good as we look to the back half of 2021. With that, Amit, we are ready to take some questions.
Great. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Cindy. That was super helpful and comprehensive. I want to start where you left off, Mark, on the volume picture. No surprise. Your volume growth quarter to date is on the plus side of the camp, but quite a bit below your closest competitor. If you look at kind of what you're doing quarter to date, year to date versus where you were the same period in 2019, it's also quite a bit below. I know you guys are dealing with some idiosyncratic issues like the chassis repairs, etc., etc. A lot of that's coming from intermodal. Just talk about kind of where you're seeing the biggest differences on the relative underperformance in volume, if you'd characterize it as that. Is it transitory market share losses that you expect to get back once maybe the service level and the chassis come back?
What's behind the—if you can just talk a little bit about that volume discrepancy?
Sure, sure, Amit. One thing, I can tell you what it's not. It's not merchandise. Merchandise, we're actually doing quite well. We're up 8.5% quarter to date, and outpacing the industry, actually. It's a good area for us. I think where we're really seeing the gaps is intermodal and in coal. Let's start with intermodal. I mean, we've got clearly a distressed supply chain, and that is actually being exacerbated by the chassis repair issue that we have. We've been very upfront about that. There is additional growth to come as we get the chassis fleet back up and running, and it is coming back up. We've made good progress on repairing the faulty fleet that is out there, but there is still more work to do. Look, there's continued pressure from the drayage community, and that puts pressure on our volume.
Assets are not turning as quickly as they need to on rail, and that impacts our entire network, including what's going on in the street. That said, we've seen considerable growth in our premium LTL market, and we are supporting that with the available chassis at the expense of the non-premium traffic. We are triaging a bit to make sure we protect that premium segment. At the end of the day, we'll get back on track with the chassis, and I think you'll see better intermodal performance progressively here as we close out the year. Now, on coal, we were kind of clear about this on the earnings call, that there are some maintenance outages that have impacted some of the demand on our coal. We were heavily impacted by that starting in late June, and those continued through July.
That certainly has put an impact on us on the coal side. Then coal availability is down, and franchise differences do make an impact, I think, when you're looking at us here. Year to date, our coal business, year to date, we're up 22%, and that's, I think, six points ahead of where our Eastern peer is. Year to date is a good story on the coal side. Quarter to date is a little bit more where you see the issue that you've raised.
I think.
Go ahead, Mark. Sorry.
No, I was going to say, but we're confident because our customers are confident that things are going to continue to get better in the market as we close the year. Go ahead, Amit.
Yeah. I want to talk about kind of the OpEx cadence. I mean, as revenue becomes a little bit more clear as we progress through the quarter, I mean, it looks like you're obviously still going to see year-on-year revenue growth, maybe sequentially a little bit down. You've kind of talked about this low 60% OR level for the back half, I think, is what you mentioned. How do you think OpEx should trend sequentially relative to that sequential trend in revenue? Do you have opportunity to maybe lower it a little bit, or is that just going to be what drives the deterioration of the OR in the third quarter relative to what you did the second quarter?
I think from an OPEX perspective, the big variable is going to be fuel, the sequential movement on fuel. I think we've been pretty clear on comp and bend. You see our headcounts kind of going sideways to leaking down a little bit. I think you should be able to figure that between comp and bend, knowing now that you've got some incentive headwinds that I've given you some guidance on. Most of the other OPEX lines we're hoping will hold a little bit more sideways, although there will be some pressure on purchase services that we've talked about and some pressure on equipment rents as well. Aside from that, it's really more about the composition of some of the revenue change that we've made. I mean, the fuel surcharge, bear in mind, we've raised our guidance on the revenue by three points.
Let me get kind of a little more granular and specific for you. We raised it by three percentage points. About a third of that raise, Amit, was from the fuel surcharge. Now, that covers increases in fuel expense, albeit on a lag, but there's really no drop through on that. The other two-thirds is really a combination of higher accessorials than we originally had budgeted, and then also a mix toward coal, a higher mix toward coal. Those two elements, that two-thirds, brings pretty good drop through, really good drop through, actually.
When you blend it all together with a one-third that has essentially no drop through, you're just going to have incremental margins that are a little bit lighter in the back half than what we enjoyed in the first half, especially considering that the accessorials themselves will likely diminish in the second half from what we enjoyed in the first half, hopefully as the network and the fluidity of the overall infrastructure starts to improve. Does that give you a little bit of the color that you're looking for?
Super granular, super helpful. I wanted to talk—I'm just sticking on the volume side for a minute. I guess it was recently reported that you guys are reopening the Greencastle intermodal facility. I know when that was shut down back in 2019, it was kind of a temporary move, or at least that's what it was discussed to be. Just talk about why you reopened that, what that gives you in terms of better fluidity and better ability to maybe execute on some of the demand growth you're seeing.
Yeah. I think Cindy and I can talk a bit about that. I mean, this is a move, obviously, to help the fluidity in the overall network. I mean, it will take a lot of pressure and congestion out of—is it the Richmond?
Rutherford.
Rutherford facility. That is really the main purpose of that move. Cindy, why don't you talk a little more about it?
Yeah. I mean, I think that's essentially it. I mean, it gives us more capacity and capability of landing containers on a footprint that is built for that purpose. As you mentioned, we felt like we'd get to this point here at some point, and we're here. I also think there's other actions we're taking in the intermodal space to try to solve the volume that we're seeing and being able to handle it as efficiently as we can. We've talked about the chassis a little bit. I think when you look at Landers, our facility at Landers, it's in Chicago, we've got some opportunities to improve our stacking efficiencies to gain some capacity there. We've acquired some parking off-site and reconfigured our lot space in general and acquired some parking off-site. We're doing a lot of things.
Greencastle's just one to give ourselves the capability to manage the volume in this very constrained and lumpy supply chain set of challenges that we find ourselves in.
Yeah. I guess, Cindy, you've had a lot of things thrown at you this year. I mean, starting with the weather, you had obviously some derailments in the second quarter, congestion ongoing. You've had the chassis issue that's pretty idiosyncratic to Norfolk. Just talk about how comfortable you are with the operations today. Update us on the chassis issue. How many of that 5,100 have been kind of fixed and back in service? Just give us an update, kind of state of the network, so to speak.
Yeah. I'll start with chassis. Just to kind of start at the high level, we secured about 80 vendors to help solve this repair that needed to be made, and they were across about 15 different locations on our network. We're approaching about two-thirds complete with a target to be complete about 75% at the end of the month. It gets a little harder as you get to the stragglers, and some of those stragglers are not actually on our network. We will continue to make progress, but probably not the step functions that I'm calling out here right now. Also for reference, I think we were about 45% complete when we spoke on second quarter earnings call. You can see the real progress we've made this month.
I will also highlight that we're acquiring an additional 1,100 chassis, which we should start to see coming, being available September 1, and we'll be completely on-site or on property by the end of the month. There is a lot of relief coming towards the chassis situation that we find ourselves in. Yeah. A little more broadly than that, how do I feel? I mean, I am excited and energized, really, by the opportunity to continue to improve our operation, which our customers both need and expect, as well as doing it with a strong amount of productivity. Working in any part of the supply chain that we're in right now, with all of its challenges, it's added a little degree of difficulty, but we are making improvements. We're not anywhere where we need to be. This is also an outside sport, right?
A tropical depression that's passing through town here also adds a little bit to the complexity. I think we're creating opportunities to overcome these challenges more profitably than we ever have. We've accomplished a lot in 2021 so far, and we're continuing to find opportunities and setting ourselves up nicely for 2022 and beyond. I'll highlight a few things that I see. We're hiring where we need to. That's been a real topic. It's really about managing our workforce. We knew going in that we had productivity opportunities that we needed to take on. We weren't going to need to replace one-for-one in terms of attrition, but we did need to hire in certain points on our network. We are doing that. We are doing that in some cases, finding ourselves in a very constrained labor market.
That's a headwind for us in places. We are really also seeing productivity and allowing attrition to help us realize that productivity. That's really the best way to manage it without having to furlough people. You just simply do not hire and allow that productivity to be generated by natural attrition. We are continuing to get faster and more productive inside our terminals. I talked about that on the earnings call too, and that feels really good. We are seeing about a two-hour improvement in our terminals from Q2 to Q3. We are also doing a nice job of handling the surge of bulk traffic. When I say surge of bulk traffic, as we have looked at what we thought our composition of business would look like, we thought it would be more weighted towards intermodal and manifest versus bringing on bulk trains and coal in particular.
As you know, coal is a more resource-intensive service product. I think we've done a really good job of bringing that on. There's still opportunities to make that more productive. The other thing I'll highlight, like the third item or fourth item I'd like to highlight, is on the capital front, we've got good work going on, both physical work and planning on siding extensions to allow us to continue to grow train length. Our DC to AC conversion of our locomotive fleet gives us a much stronger tractive effort per unit in our locomotive fleet. Those conversions are also in progress. We're still making some organizational moves as well as planning moves to streamline and simplify our network as we either manage it as well as how the plan is laid together. We've got a long way to go.
We're going to take the improvement that we're seeing, but not be satisfied with where we are. That's kind of where I see the network at this point.
Just one comment on the chassis thing, and just to clean up a little bit, I think the new chassis that Cindy spoke about are coming on at the beginning of the year, not the beginning of next month, beginning of 2022. So I just want to get that out there.
Yeah. Yeah. That's helpful. Cindy, I just want to talk about the further improvements to the network that are left to be made because Norfolk was the last of the US rail standard precision schedule railroading. Even I'll admit I was skeptical early on, but the improvements that you've made or the company's made over the last several years on, like you said, train weights, workforce productivity, length, fuel efficiency, it's undeniable that the business is structurally changing. Everybody's kind of asking the question, where are you in that evolution? Is there how long can you keep—and maybe this question marks too—how long do you think you can keep the cost structure kind of static and layer on volume and revenue onto the network before you have to maybe think about adding more resources?
What's the idiosyncratic kind of non-volume productivity opportunity based on all the further improvements you can do on some of these metrics?
You know what? I think it does depend a little bit on the mix of business as we see it coming on. Let's just back up and get a little historical perspective, and then we can kind of project that forward. Our mission this year, as we started, was to bring on the volume from the pandemic lows onto a more streamlined network. That streamlined network in two big buckets was a terminal network that looked vastly different: converting hump yards to flat switching, being able to process cars or improve car velocity as a result of that, as well as building all-purpose trains. As the automotive network kind of dwindled in terms of its production of automobiles in the pandemic, we merged that, what used to be its own automobile network, into our manifest network.
Those were the big building blocks that took place during 2019 and 2020. As you described, we've been able to really layer that on largely without a lot of cost additions. That has created the train length that you're talking about, the train weight that you're talking about, and also our locomotive and crew productivity. There is still work to do. We've created some opportunities in this year. One of those—I talked about this a little bit on the earnings call—was yard and locals and being more efficient with our yard crew base and our local crew base, not just our line of road where you really think about that as part of train starts in general. We improved our GTMs per employee working in yard and local service by 7% from Q1- Q2 of 2021.
That's on a doubling of the rate of GTM growth. Embedded in this is discipline on how to constantly optimize that particular local network based on the current volume. This is your point that as things change, how do we take advantage? It is really putting in place the mindset around continuing to optimize towards the volumes that you see because they will go up and down at a discrete location. I talked about increasing—or I have not talked about it, but I will talk about increasing speed through terminals, reducing our dwell time by about two hours from Q1 to Q2. That automatically drives some efficiency in handling of cars because we are moving cars faster through the terminals. We are utilizing technology as well, going to kind of remote control back to some of our remote control capability.
Frankly, streamlined terminals are more efficient. Terminals just do not need as many people. We are still finding a lot of opportunity there. Even as recently as this week, we have actually layered on some more opportunity that we see. I will add the bulk piece because we talked about that being a more resource-intensive service product. We do see some opportunities to consolidate bulk trains. As that volume has been a little bit higher, it gives us more consolidation opportunity. In some of the lanes that we are looking at, we are only consolidating about 20%. There is opportunity to improve that. Some lanes, it is already 70%. That business mix always gives us chances to do more with it. The capability that one of the enablers there is our locomotive fleet, which is DPU capable as we continue to do conversions. Those conversions come with DPU.
Right now, we kind of have to manage the fleet on top of managing the trains. As we get more DPU on our network, we'll be able to be much more efficient with that. That's really exciting. I mean, there's also a capacity dividend when you think about taking trains off the network. Just exciting stuff. I mentioned sidings. As those come on, that will allow us to continue to improve. I think I mentioned in the second quarter that about 10% of our intermodal trains are operating over 10,000 ft. That was true from Q1 and Q2. The train length improvement that we've made has been smaller trains getting bigger. As we get these sidings, that's going to give us some momentum.
As big as the intermodal component is of our business mix, it's going to give us some momentum as well. I got to tell you, fuel is one that we're aiming hard at. We've got to narrow that gap with our peers. There are opportunities for us to do that. We are laser-focused on continuing to make that a high priority and just reduce the gap between us and many in the industry and the rest in the industry. I see a lot of opportunity here, man. I'm thrilled about it. It's why I came to NS. I had a lot of experience in trying to make some of these moves in other railroads. I'm really excited about what we're working on here and the team that we've got that's making it happen.
Great. Mark, if we think just shifting gears to yield and pricing, obviously, we're talking about really good performance in the second quarter, I think 5% X fuel. A lot of that driven by intermodal, if not all of it driven by intermodal. I think you had mentioned that that was a lot of SS oil driven. I mean, when we think about yields sequentially, you've got a little bit of maybe fuel benefit. Should yields be up sequentially 3Q versus 2Q? How do you think about that playing out?
We have not guided specifically to intermodal yields. I think what we did say is overall yields should be positive year over year in the balance of this year. Getting back to the intermodal RPU improvement that we saw in the second quarter, we did say roughly half of that was from the storage charges. Half of the improvement was from the storage charges, while fuel pricing and mix explained the remainder. Let's just take a moment to understand. I think we will continue to have it, SS oil and storage here in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, although we are expecting that to diminish in time. What we are talking about is we have invested quite a bit to help solve some issues for customers, to increase the storage capability and capacity.
We've invested a little bit in lifts and storage areas to help solve the problem. The SS oil and storage charges really are just getting a return on those investments. It is not something that systematically we want to keep in place. We want to see those assets turn. We are hopeful here in the back half of the year that storage goes down because the volumes and the equipment is turning much, much faster.
Just on pricing related to that, I mean, there's obviously some contracts that are tied to inflation, but there's others obviously that renew every year. I mean, what's the sort of cadence of repricing? When can we see that kind of more pronounced in the yield and the real figures?
Yeah. Look, the average contract tenure is a little more than two years. So roughly half of our portfolio reprices. Of course, the current pricing environment does help establish what that's going to be. We try not to be too volatile with our pricing. We want to give our channel partners visibility and predictability into the future. As the contracts reopen, we turn around and we price to the market like we've always done. We've had 18 consecutive quarters of year over year RPU less fuel improvement or growth in our intermodal side. We feel like that will continue. We price to the market. The goal is to get pricing above rail inflation over the long term. Pretty confident in that.
You have been helpful, Mark, in the past about, excuse me, thinking about the cost structure dynamics and the incrementals. You obviously talked about it in the back half of the year, but I am thinking more into 2022. I mean, I think you have thought about kind of 60%-70% incremental margins on growth. Is that the right kind of algorithm for 2022 as you see it now? Just talk about, I mean, 2022 could be quite an interesting year where you have got some pricing, you have got hopefully some normalization of mix. Talk about kind of how you think about the incrementals in 2022 based on all those factors.
Yeah. Look, I'll start with it's too early to guide on 2022 given there's so many unknowns. Of course, our expectation today would be that we would have healthy, accretive incrementals in 2022. That's the way we talk internally is that's what the expectation is. In a growth environment like this, the whole goal is to keep a lid on cost growth and absorb volume growth and also enjoy some pricing growth as well. That said, it's way too early to talk about 2022 because there are variables that we just can't pin down yet. Some of those variables would be things like the volume. We don't know what the volume outlook is going to be. Should be good. Everything feels good. We don't know if there's between now and 2022, there's a black swan event or some significant secular change.
We just don't know yet. Volume outlook will play a role. The mix of where that volume is will play a role in what the incrementals look like. Fuel prices will also play a role because it is detrimental to OR given the fuel surcharge and the fuel cost are basically 100% OR. There are growing inflation pressures. We do a really good job. We have an excellent sourcing organization. We will continue to push back on inflation. It is a little concerning to see some of the inflationary numbers. We will have to see what that starts to look like in 2022. Frankly, the overall transportation fluidity profile, hopefully, it improves from here, and that should help things. If it doesn't, it becomes a headwind we have to overcome, although SS oils can help compensate for that.
We're still quite early. That gives you a sense of some of the variables that we are looking at. Generally speaking, our expectation is we're going to continue to drive for healthy incrementals in 2022.
Yeah. The last maybe question I had, obviously, we'll find out over the next week or two kind of the outcome of this rail merger love triangle, so to speak. You guys obviously do some business with Kansas City and the Meridian Speedway. Just talk about the implications for Norfolk. If obviously one of the Canadian rails merges with Kansas City, you've obviously had a lot of time to think about it. Love to get your thoughts on that. And then sort of the downstream implications for future kind of merger activity.
Yeah. As you noted, we've got a shared asset with Kansas City Southern. That is our Meridian Speedway. It's a very important corridor for us, something we value. We will protect our interests in that JV on behalf of our customer and our shareholders, for sure. Look, there's going to be a time and a place with the whole STB process where we'll be invited publicly to engage on that and how to protect our asset. We'll go through that at the right time through the normal regulatory process. No matter how you look at it, all three roads, CN, CP, KCS, they're all important interchange partners with NS today. They all have slightly different impacts depending on how the deal transpires. We're not going to get too specific right now. Let's wait and see how things play out.
This is rapidly evolving and daily events. It's kind of interesting to sit back and watch, but I don't really want to get into speculating on what the potential outcome might be. Are you going to follow up?
Yeah. I was going to ask about the Meridian Speedway. I mean, what's the volume? And you're putting through that right now? Any disclosure?
We don't put specific numbers out there for that. Sorry on that.
Okay. No problem. One last one for me, Mark. You were super specific on the second quarter call about headcount and wage per employee. I think you said 33,000 or something like that. Is that any change there in terms of the environment and the inflationary environment? It's fast-moving. Is that still how you see it kind of shaping up for the quarter, for the third quarter?
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I would stick with that number 33,000. I do not know if I can get any more specific than giving you the actual per employee dollar number.
That's pretty specific. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.
There's going to be a little bit of plus and minus, third quarter, fourth quarter, but ballpark, there you go.
Any other questions from the audience? Otherwise, I'm going to end this. They've got a meeting to get to pretty soon here. You can just raise your hand virtually. Okay. I think we've got a shy audience today, guys. Thanks so much, Mark, Cindy. Really appreciate the opportunity. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Okay.
Take care.
Take care.
Take care.
Thank you.