Washington ? CSX Corp. Chairman John Snow is likely to be nominated by President Bush to replace Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, White House officials said Sunday night.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bush had told advisers that Snow, 63, was his choice after a final review of his financial and personal background.

News of Bush’s plans emerged just two days after the president fired O’Neill and White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey as part of a shakeup designed to control political damage from the ailing economy.

Bush intends to replace Lindsey with Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, the investment firm, White House officials said.

Snow, 63, is chairman, president and chief executive of CSX, a freight and transportation conglomerate based in Richmond, Va. The firm runs the largest rail freight network in the eastern United States. He also worked for the Transportation Department in the Ford administration.

The White House had planned to announce the choices of Snow and Friedman today, but the complicated task of reviewing their financial portfolios may delay one or both announcements, officials said.

The president hopes both Snow and Friedman will be better than O’Neill and Lindsey at communicating administration economic policies to both Congress and the public, officials said.

Officials say Snow has experience in Washington and a record in business outside New York, giving him what the White House calls “Main Street experience.”

The Senate would have to confirm his nomination.

Snow’s first task would be to help build support for a major economic package Bush plans to introduce later this month or in early January.

The White House has been at work for months on a new economic package centered on additional tax cuts for lower- and middle-income individuals, playing down the administration’s earlier focus on business-side tax proposals to stimulate investment.

Other ideas on the table are designed to encourage individual investors in the volatile stock market.