Railroads In The 2010s: PSR, Coal’s Decline & Positive Train Control

Last revised: September 14, 2026

The 2010s did not redraw the Class I map. They changed how the map was run, and what it hauled. Class I miles of road stood at 95,573 in 2010 and 91,773 in 2020—the same Association of American Railroads series that put 99,250 miles on the books in 2000. Ton-miles peaked at 1,851,000 million in 2014, then fell with coal and again with the 2020 pandemic, to 1,439,814 million. Berkshire Hathaway closed on BNSF on February 12, 2010. Hunter Harrison took Canadian Pacific on June 29, 2012 and CSX in March 2017. Congress’s Positive Train Control deadline, postponed from 2015, landed on December 31, 2018. Genesee & Wyoming bought RailAmerica. Kansas City Southern stayed independent. No two Class Is merged.

What follows here is 2010 through 2020: a private western giant, Precision Scheduled Railroading as a named campaign, coal giving way to chemicals and stacks, a federal safety system on the mains, and a Class I list that was still seven names when the decade ended.

CSX AC4400CW 422 leading westbound empty hoppers train E725 at Corinth West Virginia October 17 2011

CSX AC4400CW 422 leads westbound empty hoppers, train E725, over the old B&O at Corinth, West Virginia, along the Maryland–West Virginia state line on October 17, 2011. Wade Massie photo.

On this page: At a glance · The map of 2010 · Harrison, CP, and PSR · CSX, 2017 · Coal down, stacks up · Positive Train Control · Short lines, one holding company · Into the 2020s

At a glance

Item	Detail
Class I miles of road, 2010	95,573 (AAR / BTS series; same series as 99,250 in 2000 on the 2000s page)
Class I miles of road, 2015	93,628
Class I miles of road, 2020	91,773
Class I ton-miles, 2010	1,691,004 million
Class I ton-miles, 2014 (peak)	1,851,000 million
Class I ton-miles, 2020	1,439,814 million
Berkshire Hathaway closes BNSF	February 12, 2010. Announced November 3, 2009
Hunter Harrison at CP	President and CEO June 29, 2012, after Pershing Square’s proxy fight. Left January 2017
G&W control of RailAmerica	Announced July 23, 2012. STB Finance Docket 35654, December 20, 2012; control December 28
NS Heritage locomotives	2012, 30th anniversary. Twenty predecessor schemes. Date here; heritage overview on fallen flags
Lac-Mégantic	July 6, 2013. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic crude train. Crude-by-rail context, not a second encyclopedia
Hunter Harrison at CSX	CEO, March 2017. Died December 16, 2017
PTC statutory deadline	Rail Safety Improvement Act 2008 originally December 31, 2015. PTCEI Act to December 31, 2018; some roads to December 31, 2020
EPA locomotive Tier 4	New line-haul units, model year 2015
Not this decade	CPKC (2023). Pending UP–NS. PSR as 2026 current practice. The 2026 Class I map

Class I mileage and ton-miles from Association of American Railroads, Railroad Facts, as tabulated by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Information compiled September 14, 2026.

The map of 2010

On February 12, 2010, Berkshire Hathaway completed the purchase announced the previous November: the 77.4 percent of Burlington Northern Santa Fe it did not already own, $100 a share, about $44 billion including debt. Fort Worth stayed the railroad’s headquarters. BNSF left the public tape. The company encyclopedia is BNSF. The announcement is the 2000s.

The rest of the list did not move. Union Pacific, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, and Kansas City Southern were the other six. Wisconsin Central was already CN. DM&E was already CP. The STB’s 2001 major-merger rules still had not been used on a two-Class-I case. Class I mileage was about 95,500. Ton-miles had come back off the 2009 floor. That is what 2000 left on the table. The 2010s assignment was to run it—and to watch coal, the commodity that had paid the 1980s and 1990s, begin to leave.

Harrison, CP, and PSR

Hunter Harrison had run Illinois Central in the 1990s and Canadian National from January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2009. Those dates are the previous decades. In 2012 William Ackman’s Pershing Square won a proxy fight at Canadian Pacific, ousted Fred Green, and put Harrison in the chair. CP named him president and chief executive on June 29, 2012. The operating ratio was the scoreboard. Longer trains, fewer yards, scheduled freight instead of tonnage waits: the method he had written into How We Work and Why (2005) now had a public name, Precision Scheduled Railroading. Keith Creel, his operating deputy, succeeded him when Harrison left CP in January 2017. The company encyclopedia is Canadian Pacific. Canadian National remains Canadian National.

That is a 2010s operating date. How Class Is run in 2026 is the today page.

CSX, 2017

Harrison was not finished. Backed by Paul Hilal’s Mantle Ridge, he went after CSX. Michael Ward left. Harrison became chief executive in March 2017. Yards closed, locomotives parked, schedules rewritten, in months rather than years. Shippers and some of the railroad’s own officers said the network seized up. He died on December 16, 2017, in Wellington, Florida, eight days short of ten months in the job. Jim Foote took over as acting chief executive. Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern adopted PSR-style operating plans later in the decade; BNSF did not take the brand. CSX is CSX. Norfolk Southern is Norfolk Southern. Union Pacific is Union Pacific.

In 2012, the same year Harrison arrived at CP, Norfolk Southern marked its 30th anniversary with twenty heritage locomotives in predecessor paint. That program is a date here. The fallen-flag overview is fallen flags.

Coal down, stacks up

Class I miles of road moved from 95,573 (2010) to 93,628 (2015) to 91,773 (2020). The slope is flatter than the 1980s–90s spinoff years. The traffic mix is not. Class I ton-miles rose from 1,691,004 million in 2010 to a decade peak of 1,851,000 million in 2014, then fell as Appalachian and Powder River coal lost electric-generation share to gas and renewables. Crude-by-rail filled some of the gap at mid-decade—Bakken oil in unit trains—until prices and pipelines took the business off. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic’s wreck at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, on July 6, 2013, is the crude-train date the public remembered. Intermodal kept climbing. The 2020 pandemic cut ton-miles to 1,439,814 million.

The Corinth photograph is 2011 coal country still working: CSX empties west on the old B&O toward the mines, Maryland–West Virginia line. Five years later the chemical train on Slab Fork is the other eastern product. The Verona hotshot in January 2019 is the western one, a BNSF stack train at 70 mph across Illinois. EPA Tier 4 hit new line-haul locomotives in model year 2015. The Evolution-series units in the pictures are the 2000s fleet still doing the 2010s’ work. That hardware story is diesel locomotives.

Norfolk Southern ES44AC 8070 leading the Chemical Train over Slab Fork Trestle West Virginia June 2016

Norfolk Southern ES44AC 8070 leads the Chemical Train over Slab Fork Trestle, West Virginia, in June 2016. Loyd Lowry photo.

BNSF ES44DC 7252 leading an eastbound intermodal through Verona Illinois at 70 mph January 2019

BNSF ES44DC 7252 leads an eastbound hotshot intermodal through Verona, Illinois, at 70 mph in January 2019. Loyd Lowry photo.

The today page uses 164,822 (1980) and 136,650 (2020) for a national-network snapshot. Direction is the same: a smaller Class I plant. Short lines and regionals remain short lines and regionals.

Positive Train Control

The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 required Class I freight railroads and intercity and commuter passenger operators to install Positive Train Control on mains that carried passengers or poison-inhalation-hazard traffic. The original deadline was December 31, 2015. The Positive Train Control Enforcement and Implementation Act of 2015 moved full implementation to December 31, 2018, with a statutory off-ramp to December 31, 2020 if a railroad met six hardware-and-testing tests. Amtrak’s derailment of train 188 at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia on May 12, 2015 kept the political clock running. By the 2018 date the Class Is were largely in revenue service or on FRA alternative schedules; interoperability among hosts and tenants took the extra years. The 2008 statute is a 2000s door. The deadline that actually governed the industry is this decade.

Amtrak eastbound Cardinal at historic Thurmond West Virginia October 2018

Amtrak’s eastbound Cardinal at historic Thurmond, West Virginia, in October 2018. Loyd Lowry photo.

Thurmond is the passenger leftover on the old Chesapeake & Ohio. The Cardinal still uses that depot three days a week. The named-train encyclopedia is the Cardinal. Amtrak as a company is Amtrak.

Short lines, one holding company

The Class I map froze. The short-line map did not. Genesee & Wyoming agreed to buy RailAmerica on July 23, 2012, $27.50 a share, about $1.4 billion in cash for the shares. The purchase closed into a voting trust on October 1. The Surface Transportation Board approved control on December 20, 2012, Finance Docket 35654, effective December 28. The combination was the largest short-line holding company in the country: on the order of a hundred railroads and 15,000 miles. That is a 2010s date on the Staggers spinoff industry, not a second G&W encyclopedia. Kansas City Southern remained the seventh Class I and kept its Mexican franchise. CPKC is 2023.

Into the 2020s

By 2020 the seven-name Class I list was still intact. BNSF belonged to Berkshire Hathaway. Harrison had been to CP and CSX and was gone. PTC was on the mains or on the last FRA schedules. Coal was no longer the growth commodity. Intermodal was. Class I mileage was about 91,800. Ton-miles had taken the pandemic punch. Kansas City Southern was still independent.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City (2023), the pending Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern case, and Precision Scheduled Railroading as everyday 2026 practice are later than this page. The present-tense industry—who the Class Is are, how the STB works, what the 2026 map looks like—is railroads of today. The 2010s left them a private BNSF, an operating gospel with a public name, a federal overlay on the signals, a short-line holding company that had swallowed its largest rival, and a traffic mix that no longer assumed the power plants would take the coal.

Sources

Association of American Railroads, Railroad Facts, Class I miles of road and ton-miles, as tabulated by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (95,573 / 1,691,004 million in 2010; 93,628 / 1,745,000 million in 2015; 94,372 / 1,851,000 million in 2014 peak; 91,773 / 1,439,814 million in 2020)
Berkshire Hathaway–BNSF closed February 12, 2010 (Associated Press; Berkshire/BNSF). Announcement November 3, 2009, on the 2000s page
Canadian Pacific: Hunter Harrison appointed president and CEO June 29, 2012 (CP news release; CBC). Pershing Square / William Ackman proxy fight, May 2012. Harrison left CP January 2017; Keith Creel succeeded him
CSX: Harrison CEO March 2017 (Mantle Ridge / Paul Hilal). Died December 16, 2017, Wellington, Florida (CSX news release). Jim Foote acting CEO
Genesee & Wyoming–RailAmerica: announced July 23, 2012, $27.50 a share (Reuters; G&W). Closed into voting trust October 1, 2012. STB Finance Docket 35654, December 20, 2012; control December 28, 2012
Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, PTC originally December 31, 2015. Positive Train Control Enforcement and Implementation Act of 2015, deadline December 31, 2018, alternative schedule not later than December 31, 2020 (49 U.S.C. §20157; FRA). Amtrak train 188, Frankford Junction, Philadelphia, May 12, 2015
Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, July 6, 2013, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic. Norfolk Southern Heritage locomotives, 2012. EPA locomotive Tier 4, model year 2015
Live American-Rails company and named-train pages as linked above

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