The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) declined on April 21 to hear CSX’s bid to revive its antitrust lawsuit accusing Norfolk Southern of illegally restricting access to Norfolk International Terminals (NIT), served by the Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad Company (NPBL), according to Reuters.
SCOTUS rejected CSX’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling last year that the railroad “sued too late, missing a four-year window to bring claims for U.S. antitrust law violations,” Reuters reported. “CSX had argued the statute of limitations should not be applied in its lawsuit.”
CSX’s court challenges began several years ago as “an antitrust complaint alleging NS majority control of NPBL is anticompetitive in violation of antitrust law,” Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner noted in a March 11, 2025 commentary. “CSX says the NS-NPBL relationship is also under investigation by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. (Notably, while railroads risk running afoul of the antitrust laws in their dealings with each other, Congress made railroads largely immune from shipper antitrust allegations in favor of STB regulation—something shippers argue hasn’t worked out too well for them.)”
CSX and NS, “figuratively and frequently in hand-grenade tossing distance of each other,” according to Wilner—are also currently engaged in regulatory combat at the Surface Transportation Board over allegations of monopoly. The STB docket is Norfolk Southern Railway Company—Control Acquisition—Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad Company, FD No. 36836. CSX, Wilner said, “alleges that an NS application to gain from the STB fast-track control of NPBL should be rejected by the agency. CSX alleges NS and NPBL have improperly conspired to limit CSX access to NIT in contravention of NPBL’s creation more than a century ago as a neutral terminal railroad. NS owns a 57% majority of NPBL and CSX the remaining 43%.”
