On Track
for Growth
UPGRADES TO ORACLE E-BUSINESS
SUITE AND ORACLE’S PEOPLESOFT
SYSTEMS HELP CSX RIDE THE
EXPANDING RAILROAD INDUSTRY.
Tony Papa, Director of Applications Development, CSX
BOB MORRIS
merica’s railroads are experiencing a back-to-
the-future moment. The backbone of freight
shipping in the U.S. since the 1800s, trains are
enjoying renewed interest by customers eyeing
rising energy costs that are forcing them to find
more-efficient and more-economical ways to ship
materials throughout the country. Railroads are
coming into focus in part because industry sta-
tistics show freight trains burn only one gallon
of fuel to move a ton of freight 480 miles. That
makes trains about four times more fuel efficient
than trucks, according to the U.S. Department of
Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration.
Industrial customers are taking notice. Last year
saw the biggest year-over-year gain in rail shipping in
the U.S. in more than 20 years. One industry association recently predicted that rail companies will be
on a hiring binge for the next five years—partly to
keep up with demand and partly because companies
will see many of their workers hitting retirement age
during that period.
CSX, one of the oldest and largest rail companies in the U.S., is in the thick of these transformative trends. In business for more than 180 years,
CSX employs more than 30,000 people and is
successfully riding the economic recovery—the
company’s stock rose 63 percent in the last year.
But to keep the company strong, management
