.His ouster comes after pair of challenging years in the best job and just times after the provider's board announced it was examining him for affirmed moral lapses.The Atlanta-based railroad pointed out Shaw had an unsuitable consensual connection along with Norfolk Southern's main lawful police officer, who was also ended. Norfolk Southern marketed Main Financial Police officer Smudge George to become the railroad's next CEO.Shaw was leading Norfolk Southern in February 2023 when among its learns hindered, blew toxic chemicals and also ignited in East Palestine, Ohio, the most awful railroad calamity in the final years. Then, activist client Ancora Holdings attempted to take control of the railroad earlier this year as well as fire Shaw.He survived legislative hearings and also challenging neighborhood appointments after the East Palestine derailment, while vowing to create Norfolk Southern the "gold standard for security" in the business. He likewise managed to encourage financiers certainly not to back most of Ancora's board nominees. 3 of its candidates performed win chairs on the railway's board, yet that had not been enough to give it control.The derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania perimeter motivated the country to re-examine railroad safety and led lawmakers and also regulatory authorities to ask for reforms. However those proposals have largely delayed, and also the business has actually made only marginal adjustments considering that the derailment, including putting in more trackside sensors to identify overheating bearings like the one that resulted in the East Palestine crash.The unsatisfactory economic end results Norfolk Southern supplied after the derailment, integrated with concerns concerning Shaw's approach of maintaining extra workers on hand during a slump, created the railroad ready for pressure from a real estate investor like Ancora. Norfolk Southern's incomes have actually regularly hung back the other primary railways that even more aggressively taken on the lean operating version that has actually become the field requirement.