Now along comes Union Pacific decades later with its proposed $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern. Even after all this, NS in 2024 generated $4.1 billion in operating income on revenue of $12.1 billion. A railroad that strays outside the operating ratio box, no matter how briefly, soon finds activist investors at its doorstep. And so a low operating ratio and growth are incompatible. In the truck-competitive U.S. of A., however, taxpayer-supported interstates parallel every major main line, and railroad volume growth has been anemic.