Norfolk Southern railroad's 4Q profit flat as total volume grows but coal revenue falls 15 pct

Norfolk Southern Corp. reported its profit was little changed in the fourth quarter from a year ago because the railroad's coal revenue fell 15 percent on weak demand from utilities and export markets.

The Norfolk, Virginia, based company said Monday that total volume increased 4 percent but that wasn't enough to offset the coal weakness.

The railroad reported it earned $511 million, or $1.64 per share, slightly below last year's earnings of $513 million, or $1.64 per share.

Norfolk Southern said its revenue also dipped to $2.87 billion from last year's $2.88 billion.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected the railroad to report earnings per share of $1.63 on revenue of $2.94 billion. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.64 per share on revenue of $2.93 billion.

Norfolk Southern shares slipped $1.28 to $103.50 in premarket trading Monday about 45 minutes before the market open.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on NSC at http://www.zacks.com/ap/NSC

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Keywords: Norfolk Southern, Earnings Report