The elephant in the room on the Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) earnings call made only a brief appearance. But it will be returning in about two weeks. There were no surprises in the first-quarter earnings report, as the Class 1 railroad had issued a preliminary report earlier in the month. The final numbers, showing a significant drop in earnings related to the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment in February 2023, were in line with those preliminary figures. The East Palestine derailment saw 38 cars leave the tracks, some of them containing toxic chemicals. The subsequent fire led to an evacuation affecting thousands.   But the conference call that followed the release Wednesday gave analysts the opportunity to hear John Orr, newly hired chief operating officer. Norfolk Southern lured Orr from Canadian Pacific Kansas City (NYSE: CP) last month for financial ($25 million) and operational considerations (changes in the structure of the CPKC-NS joint venture governing the Meridian Speedway between Louisiana and Mississippi). It also gave analysts a chance to ask questions about the ongoing effort by activist investor Ancora to put in place a new CEO and COO at Norfolk Southern as well as eight new members of the board of directors. That fight is scheduled to presumably come to a head on May 9, the date of the Norfolk Southern annual meeting. But whether the company had told analysts they wouldn't be addressing the fight on the call or the analysts simply chose not to ask, the Ancora battle of the proxy vote did not come up from the analysts. It was raised by Norfolk Southern executives only in passing once during the call, when CEO Alan Shaw talked about Orr's plans to more efficiently implement precision railroading (PSR) at Norfolk Southern. "We're going to implement and we have been implementing PSR in a responsible and sustainable manner" Shaw said on the call. "[Orr] knows how to do it without tearing it down to the studs, as the activist COO has said he would have to do." Norfolk Southern first moved to PSR in 2019. The two sides in the ...