Across the board, the four major Class I railroads said low natural gas prices, coal plant retirements and a mild winter drove declines in coal volumes in the first quarter and have forced the railroads to begin looking at structural changes to their networks. “I think our utility coal franchise is going to be pressured for a considerable amount of time,” Alan Shaw, executive VP and CMO of Norfolk Southern, said on the company’s first quarter earnings call. “We need to get the economy back and running so industrial and commercial load comes back. And we’re also going to need to see an overall increase in energy prices. Prices in the PJM are in the teens right now […]