Conrail Shared Assets Operations

Conrail Shared Assets Operations, usually called CSAO, is the common name for modern day Conrail, an American railroad company that works as a contract local carrier and switching operation rather than a traditional line haul railroad. It began operating on June 1, 1999, when the original Conrail's track was divided between two larger carriers, and it is jointly owned by Norfolk Southern Railway, holding 58 percent, and CSX Transportation, holding 42 percent. CSAO runs its own employees and infrastructure, though it does not own revenue equipment beyond what it needs for track maintenance, and it manages three separate shared assets networks around Detroit, Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey, totaling about 1,200 miles of track that were deliberately kept independent so neither parent company would gain a competitive edge in those areas.