Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC) Earnings: Q3 2026 Results and Next Report Date

The quarter ended September 30, 2026 and Norfolk Southern published the results on October 22, 2026. Revenue and diluted EPS are shown against Q3 2025, the same quarter a year earlier, which takes seasonal swings out of the comparison. Norfolk Southern reports EPS two ways: GAAP, under the accounting rules every US filer follows, and adjusted, which leaves out items the company considers outside its operating results. The release reconciles the two, and when they diverge, the reconciliation says why.

• Union Pacific agreed on July 28, 2025 to acquire Norfolk Southern in a stock-and-cash transaction, subject to approval by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. Merger-related expenses were $42 million in Q3 2026.
• Adjusted figures exclude merger-related expenses and the effects of the February 2023 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio (the Eastern Ohio incident); the Q3 2025 adjusted figures also exclude restructuring and other charges.

Source: Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 results, October 22, 2026. Also in the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Figures as reported; checked against the release on November 10, 2026.

How Norfolk Southern splits revenue in its own release, under its own labels, for Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Indented lines are parts of the line above them.

• Norfolk Southern's Merchandise revenue was $2.2 billion in Q3 2026, up 11% from $2.0 billion in Q3 2025, 62% of total revenue.
• Norfolk Southern's Intermodal revenue was $919 million in Q3 2026, up 21% from $759 million in Q3 2025, 26% of total revenue.
• Norfolk Southern's Coal revenue was $419 million in Q3 2026, up 12% from $375 million in Q3 2025, 12% of total revenue.

Segment lines are the figures writers cite most often, because they show where the growth in a quarter came from. Companies redraw their segments from time to time and restate the prior year to match, so a year-ago figure here can differ from the one printed a year ago. When that has happened, the note above says so.

Revenue and diluted EPS for the last 5 quarters. Each date links to that quarter's release.

GAAP railway operating revenues and diluted EPS, each as first reported in that quarter's release.

Norfolk Southern's next report is expected around January 28, 2027, a date estimated from its reporting history that the company has not yet confirmed. This page will show Q3 2026 until those results are out and have been checked against the release.

Each quarter keeps its own page with the figures as reported, so a link to one stays pointed at the same numbers after the next report.

• Q3 2026 (this page), reported Oct 22, 2026

Norfolk Southern's railway operating revenues were a quarterly record of $3,526 million in Q3 2026, up $423 million, or 14%, from $3,103 million. Merchandise brought in $2,188 million, intermodal $919 million and coal $419 million. Norfolk Southern said volume rose 3% and higher fuel surcharges accounted for eight points of the revenue growth. (Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 release, Oct 22, 2026; Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 financial statements (Exhibit 99.2), Oct 22, 2026)

Norfolk Southern's fuel surcharge revenue was $468 million in Q3 2026, against $208 million a year earlier. Of the $423 million revenue increase, fuel surcharges added $119 million in merchandise, $114 million in intermodal and $27 million in coal, against volume gains of $54 million, $21 million and $10 million. Approximately 95% of the revenue base is covered by contracts with negotiated fuel surcharges. (Norfolk Southern Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

Within merchandise, chemicals revenue rose 16% to $658 million on higher shipments of sand, natural gas liquids and petroleum products, and metals and construction rose 15% to $516 million. Automotive was the only group to decline, to $318 million from $322 million, as units fell 8% because of supply chain constraints, unplanned production downtime and model discontinuations at some manufacturers. (Norfolk Southern Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

Norfolk Southern's intermodal revenue rose 21% to $919 million. Domestic intermodal units rose 10% to 678.7 thousand on freight demand and constrained truck capacity, while international units fell 8% to 381.9 thousand on lower volumes through East Coast ports. In coal, export tonnage rose 10% to 8,184 thousand tons and utility tonnage fell 2% on customer plant outages and service disruptions. (Norfolk Southern Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

For 2025 as a whole, intermodal was 25% of Norfolk Southern's railway operating revenues, agriculture, forest and consumer products 21%, chemicals 18%, metals and construction 14%, coal 12% and automotive 10%. The railroad operated about 19,100 route miles in 22 states and the District of Columbia at December 31, 2025. (Norfolk Southern Form 10-K, 2025, Feb 9, 2026)

Norfolk Southern's GAAP diluted EPS was $3.37 in Q3 2026, up from $3.16, and adjusted diluted EPS was $3.62, up from $3.30. The adjustments remove merger-related expenses and the effects of the Eastern Ohio incident, which together cost $0.25 per share in the quarter. Merger-related expenses were $42 million, mainly employee retention agreements, third-party advisor fees and legal fees, and Eastern Ohio incident expenses were $28 million. (Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 release, Oct 22, 2026; Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 financial statements (Exhibit 99.2), Oct 22, 2026)

Norfolk Southern's operating ratio rose to 67.4% from 64.6%, and to 65.4% from 63.3% on an adjusted basis. Fuel expense climbed to $420 million from $237 million. Norfolk Southern repurchased no shares in the first nine months of 2026, and weighted average diluted shares were 225.2 million, against 224.7 million a year earlier. (Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 release, Oct 22, 2026; Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 financial statements (Exhibit 99.2), Oct 22, 2026)

Norfolk Southern's merger agreement with Union Pacific, signed July 28, 2025, needs approval by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, and either company would owe a $2.5 billion termination fee if the agreement is terminated under specific circumstances. (Norfolk Southern Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

Diluted EPS divides net income by the weighted average number of shares outstanding in the quarter, plus the shares that options and other equity awards could add. Buybacks shrink that count and lift EPS for the same profit; share issuance and stock awards enlarge it.

Norfolk Southern does not publish a financial outlook in its earnings release; the Q3 2026 release gives results and non-GAAP reconciliations only. In its 10-Q, Norfolk Southern said fuel surcharge revenues for the remainder of the year are expected to increase compared with the prior year based on current fuel commodity prices. (Norfolk Southern Q3 2026 release, Oct 22, 2026; Norfolk Southern Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 22, 2026)

A consensus figure is the average of the models published by the analysts who cover Norfolk Southern, collected by a data provider and revised up to the day of the report. A quarter that lands above it says how expectations were set as much as how the business did, and the share price on the day also reflects the guidance and the lines no consensus covers.

The consensus figures on this page are Yahoo Finance's, as pulled on the date shown. Each comes with the number of analysts behind it; the smaller that number, the more one revised estimate can move the average.

The figures below are the ones Norfolk Southern's own release and filings put weight on for Q3 2026, with the latest reported value for each.

What the quarter means for a holding is a separate question from what it reported. The case for and against owning NSC is on is NSC a buy or a sell?, what analysts expect next is on the NSC forecast, and what the company does is on the Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC) stock page.

Every number on this page can be traced to a document Norfolk Southern published. Checking one takes a couple of minutes, and it is worth doing before you quote a figure anywhere.

• The results release is the document linked in the source line above. Companies publish it on their investor relations site at the moment results go out, and it carries the headline tables: revenue, operating income, net income and EPS for the quarter and the year-ago quarter.
• The same release is filed with the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K under Item 2.02, usually on the day of the report. The SEC copy does not change after the fact, which makes it the safer thing to link when you cite a number.
• The quarterly report (Form 10-Q) follows within a few weeks and carries the full financial statements, the segment note and management's discussion of what changed. The fourth quarter is covered by the annual report (Form 10-K) instead.
• Restated comparisons are flagged in the notes on this page. When a company redraws its segments or changes how it adjusts EPS, it restates the year-ago column, so the year-ago figure in a new release can differ from the one printed a year ago. This page always uses the comparison in the newer release, because that is the like-for-like one.

A walk-through of every line in a release, with what each one tells you, is in how to read an earnings report.