Norfolk Southern (NYSE:NSC) is a U.S. railroad shipping company. The most important commodity transported by NSC is coal, which accounted for 29% of NSC's $8 billion in 2009 total revenue. The largest commodities after coal are intermodal containers, agricultural products such as corn, cars, and consumer products.^[1] Its principal subsidiary is wholly-owned Norfolk Southern Railway Company, and it also has joint ownership (along with CSX (CSX)) of Consolidated Rail Corporation. Altogether, it has a network of 21,000 miles of track throughout 22 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Ontario, Canada.^[1] NSC earned a net income of $1.03 billion in 2009.

In 2009, 105 million tons of freight, or approximately 65% of total general merchandise tonnage transported by NSC came from online orders.^[1] As more and more customers are able to easily transport as well as track their orders online, this could prove to become an important area of growth for NSC.

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