Norfolk Southern reports it may take weeks to recover its backlog of trains after a service outage halted operations earlier this week, the railroad said in a statement Friday.
The Atlanta-based railroad confirmed the outage was not caused by a cybersecurity incident, but an error in vendor software.
“During a routine maintenance procedure being performed by our vendor, a defect in their software created an error which caused both our primary and recovery data storage systems to become unresponsive,” the railroad said in a statement. “This in turn affected our core operational systems.”
Norfolk Southern had restored its systems and resumed service Monday evening, and are currently making progress to work through its backlog. The railroad expects to fully recoup its network in the coming weeks and is working to keep customers informed of their shipment movements.
“We are working closely with the vendor to understand the steps they are taking to strengthen their systems to prevent this incident from reoccurring and identify opportunities for Norfolk Southern to become more resilient,” the railroad said.
