Collaboration with Norfolk Southern, a major U.S. freight railroad company

We’re proud to announce the successful delivery of a new reservation system for Norfolk Southern, a major U.S. freight railroad company that currently provides rail transportation and related logistics services across a 22-state network.

Founded in 1827, Norfolk Southern operates an extensive operation across the eastern United States. In partnership, we set out to design and deliver a modern, best-in-class reservation system—meeting world-class UI/UX standards while navigating an aggressive delivery timeline.

The DECODE team were great partners. They rolled with high complexity and evolving requirements to deliver a product that met our needs – whether explicitly stated or not, and was well designed and performant.

Yannik Thomas, VP of Network Design & Optimization, Norfolk Southern

What made this collaboration work was the willingness on both sides to push in the same direction. Staying agile at the scale Norfolk Southern operates is no small challenge, but that shared commitment made it possible.

“You expect a certain rigidity from a company as established as Norfolk Southern. But that’s not the experience we had with them. They were very receptive to trying new, agile ways of development.”

Mario Zderic, CTO, DECODE

Beyond the software itself, both teams came away better for it. We worked alongside skilled Norfolk Southern engineers to strengthen their development processes, and working at that scale pushed our own team to grow, too.

But what we’re most proud of goes beyond the technical work:

“I would strongly recommend DECODE to anyone looking for software development. From the outset, the engagement felt like a true partnership rather than a traditional vendor relationship.”

Chris Ingraham, AVP of Operations Infrastructure & Efficiency, Norfolk Southern