BNSF Railway facts for kids
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System map (trackage rights and former Montana Rail Link tracks in purple)
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BNSF 7520, a GE ES44DC, in Mojave, California
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| Overview | |
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| Parent company | Berkshire Hathaway |
| Headquarters | Fort Worth, Texas |
| Reporting mark | BNSF |
| Locale | Western, Midwestern and Southern United States, Western Canada |
| Dates of operation | September 22, 1995–present |
| Predecessor | Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Burlington Northern Railroad |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Length | 33,400 miles (53,800 km) |
The BNSF Railway (reporting mark BNSF) is the biggest freight railroad in the United States. It's one of the six largest railroads in North America, known as Class I railroads. BNSF has 36,000 employees and manages over 33,400 miles (53,800 km) of track across 28 states. They also have more than 8,000 locomotives (train engines).
BNSF has three main routes that cross the entire country, connecting the western and eastern United States. In 2010, BNSF trains traveled over 169 million miles (272 million kilometers), which was more than any other railroad in North America.
The main company that runs the railroad is called BNSF Railway Company. Its main office is in Fort Worth, Texas. The company is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., which is based in Omaha, Nebraska. The current CEO (chief executive officer) is Kathryn Farmer.
BNSF Railway is one of the top companies for moving intermodal freight in North America. This means they transport goods in large containers that can be easily moved between trains, trucks, and ships. They also carry bulk cargo, like coal.
BNSF was created on September 22, 1995, when a new company bought the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (also called "Santa Fe") and the Burlington Northern Railroad. These two railroads officially joined together on December 31, 1996, and were named the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. On January 24, 2005, the railroad's name was officially changed to BNSF Railway Company, using the first letters of its original name. In February 2010, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought BNSF Railway, making it a private company.
BNSF and its main competitor, the Union Pacific Railroad, are the two biggest freight rail lines in the Western, Midwestern, and Southern United States. They share the use of thousands of miles of track.
History of BNSF Railway
BNSF's story goes all the way back to 1849. That's when the Aurora Branch Railroad in Illinois and the Pacific Railroad of Missouri were started. These early railroads eventually grew into bigger companies that later became part of BNSF.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) was started in 1859. It built one of the first transcontinental railroads in North America, connecting Chicago and Southern California. It also had major lines to Texas, Denver, and San Francisco.
The Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) was formed in 1970. It was created by combining several older railroads like the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, the Great Northern Railway, and the Northern Pacific Railway. BN later added the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway in 1980. Its main lines went from Chicago to Seattle, with other lines reaching Texas and Birmingham, Alabama. BN also had access to the low-sulfur coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin.
How BNSF Was Formed
On June 30, 1994, BN and ATSF announced they planned to merge. They were two of the largest railroads in the U.S. at the time. This announcement started a new wave of mergers in the railroad industry.
The Union Pacific Railroad (UP) tried to buy Santa Fe, but they gave up on January 31, 1995. This cleared the way for the BN-ATSF merger. On February 7, 1995, the leaders of BN and ATSF announced that their shareholders had approved the plan. This merger would help save money and combine BN's strength in hauling coal with ATSF's strength in moving intermodal freight.
The two railroad systems worked well together because their lines didn't overlap much. This meant they wouldn't reduce competition in many areas. The government agency that oversees railroads, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), approved the BNSF merger on July 20, 1995. The new company, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation, officially took over on September 22, 1995. The actual merging of the railroad operations took a bit longer due to agreements with unions. ATSF officially joined BN on December 31, 1996, and BN was renamed the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company.
Changes After Other Mergers
When the Union Pacific merged with the Southern Pacific railroad, it also affected BNSF. To keep competition fair, BNSF gained ownership of some track and the right to use many more miles of track. This allowed BNSF to reach new customers and areas. For example, BNSF gained rights to use the Central Corridor from Denver to the San Francisco Bay Area.
BNSF also continued projects started by its older companies. One important project was reopening Stampede Pass in Washington. This main line had been closed in 1984 but was reopened in December 1996 to help with busy train traffic. The main line that used to belong to ATSF, now called the Southern Transcon, has also been expanded with more tracks to handle more trains.
Attempted Merger with Canadian National
On December 20, 1999, BNSF and the Canadian National Railway (CN) announced plans to combine their companies. Their lines didn't overlap much, so this merger would have helped both companies by giving them more money for improvements and allowing trains to travel longer distances on one system.
However, the government's Surface Transportation Board (STB) and many shippers were worried. The STB put a 15-month pause on mergers between any two large railroads, saying that past mergers had caused problems with train service. BNSF and CN tried to fight this decision in court, but they lost and called off the merger. The STB later set new rules for future mergers to make sure competition would be protected.
BNSF Joins Berkshire Hathaway
The company that owned BNSF, called Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation, was created in 1993 to help merge the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe railroads. This corporate merger happened on September 22, 1995.
On November 3, 2009, Berkshire Hathaway, a company owned by Warren Buffett, offered to buy all of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation. The deal was worth $44 billion, including debt. This was the biggest purchase in Berkshire Hathaway's history. The deal was completed on February 12, 2010, and the company became Burlington Northern Santa Fe, LLC, a fully owned part of Berkshire Hathaway.
Montana Rail Link Acquisition
In January 2022, BNSF agreed to buy Montana Rail Link (MRL) for $2 billion. MRL was a private railroad with over 900 miles (1,400 km) of track, serving 100 stations in Montana. The government approved the purchase on March 8, 2023.
BNSF officially took over MRL operations on January 1, 2024. This meant MRL became part of BNSF, and all 1,200 MRL employees were offered jobs with BNSF.
How BNSF Operates
What BNSF Transports
Because BNSF has such a large rail system, it carries many different types of goods. The most common things they transport are coal, grain, and intermodal freight.
- Coal: The older Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) helped build a special line into Wyoming's Powder River Basin in the 1970s. This area has a lot of low-sulfur coal. BNSF now moves this coal in long trains called unit trains to power plants across the country.
- Grain: BNSF serves over 1,500 grain elevators, mostly in the Midwest. This grain can be moved in any direction, depending on where it's needed. Often, grain goes west to the Pacific Northwest for export, or south to ports in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.
- Intermodal Freight: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway's main contribution to BNSF was the Southern Transcon. This is a fast route for intermodal freight that connects Southern California and Chicago. Most of this traffic involves trailers from trucking companies or containers from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. BNSF has been working to add more tracks to this route to handle more trains.
- BNSF also transports Boeing 737 airplane parts from a plant in Kansas to Washington state.
BNSF's Financials
| Founded | December 31, 1996 as Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway |
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Key people
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Kathryn Farmer (president and CEO) |
| Revenue |  US$25.888 billion (2022) |
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Operating income
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US8.6 billion (2022) |
| US$5.496 billion (2022) |
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| Total assets | US$92.611 billion (2022) |
| Total equity | US$47.236 billion (2022) |
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Number of employees
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 36,250 (Dec 2022) |
| Parent | Berkshire Hathaway |
BNSF's Tracks and Network
The BNSF Railway owns and operates tracks in 28 U.S. states, from Alabama to Wyoming. They also operate a small amount of track in Canada, including a section that goes to Vancouver, British Columbia, and some tracks in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
For management, BNSF divides its network into two regions and ten operating divisions. Each division is further split into smaller sections called subdivisions.
BNSF directly owns and operates over 24,000 miles (39,000 km) of track. If you count all the extra tracks like second, third, and fourth main lines, as well as yard tracks and sidings, the total length of track they control is more than 50,000 miles (80,000 km).
BNSF also has trackage rights on over 8,000 miles (13,000 km) of track owned by other railroads. This means BNSF can run its own trains with its own crews on these tracks.
Yards and Facilities
BNSF has many facilities across the United States and in Winnipeg, Canada, to help run its transportation system. These include:
- Yards and terminals: Places where trains are sorted and freight is loaded or unloaded.
- Locomotive shops: Where train engines are serviced and repaired.
- Operations center: A main center in Fort Worth that controls train movements and monitors the entire network.
- Transfer facilities: Places to easily move intermodal containers, trailers, and other freight between trains and trucks. BNSF has 33 intermodal hubs and 23 places for distributing cars.
The BNSF mechanical division has 13 facilities for maintaining locomotives and 46 more for maintaining freight cars. They also have shops that repair equipment used to maintain the tracks themselves.
In October 2022, BNSF Railway announced plans to build a huge new rail facility in Southern California, costing $1.5 billion. This new facility, called the Barstow International Gateway, will help move freight more efficiently from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach across the country.
Some of BNSF's large freight car sorting yards include:
- Barstow, California – Barstow Yard
- Galesburg, Illinois – Galesburg Yard
- Kansas City, Kansas – Argentine Yard
- Lincoln, Nebraska – Hobson Yard
- Memphis, Tennessee – Tennessee Yard
- Minneapolis, Minnesota – Northtown Yard
- Pasco, Washington – Pasco Yard
- Tulsa, Oklahoma – Cherokee Yard
Some of BNSF's intermodal yards (where containers are transferred) include:
- Cicero, Illinois – Chicago Cicero
- Chicago, Illinois – Corwith Intermodal Facility
- Commerce, California
- Edgerton, Kansas – Logistics Park Kansas City
- Elwood, Illinois – Logistics Park Chicago
- Hodgkins, Illinois – Willow Springs Intermodal Facility
- Haslet, Texas – Alliance Yard
- Los Angeles, California – Hobart Yard
- Memphis, Tennessee
- Oakland, California – Oakland International Gateway
- Omaha, Nebraska - Gibson Yard
- Seattle, Washington – Seattle International Gateway (SIG) Intermodal Facility
Major Routes
- The Northern Transcon: This route runs between Seattle and Chicago. It combines parts of older railroads like the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway.
- The Southern Transcon: This route connects Los Angeles and Chicago. By the end of 2006, almost all of this 2,200-mile (3,500 km) route had two tracks. In 2008, BNSF added a third main track through Cajon Pass in Southern California, increasing its capacity from 100 to 150 trains per day. BNSF also added a second main track in Abo Canyon in New Mexico, which was a major bottleneck.
- The Powder River Basin lines: These lines transport coal from the Powder River Basin, which provides 40% of the coal used in the United States. In 2008, BNSF completed a project to have four tracks in this area.
Operating Divisions
The BNSF system is divided into 13 divisions, grouped into three regions. Each division has many subdivisions, which are usually a main line and its branches.
Passenger Train Service
BNSF directly operates some commuter trains, like the BNSF Railway Line for Metra in Chicago and the Sounder in the Puget Sound Region. They provide the crews for these trains and the trains run on BNSF tracks. Other commuter trains, such as Metrolink in Southern California and the Northstar Line in Minneapolis, also use BNSF tracks.
Many Amtrak routes use BNSF rails, including the Amtrak Cascades, California Zephyr, Empire Builder, and Southwest Chief.
BNSF has also allowed historic steam locomotives like the Southern Pacific 4449 and Santa Fe 3751 to operate special trips on their tracks.
Safety at BNSF
BNSF has won awards for its safety efforts. The company is a big supporter of the Operation Lifesaver program, which teaches people about safety around railway crossings and tracks. In 2000, BNSF started a program to close unnecessary railway crossings. They have closed over 2,900 crossings, which has helped reduce accidents.
However, there have been some incidents. In 2014, a government agency ordered BNSF to pay money to workers who had been fired after reporting injuries. In March 2024, BNSF temporarily laid off some mechanical workers. Unions expressed concern that these cuts could affect safety and train repairs.
BNSF's Equipment
At the end of 2007, BNSF had over 40,000 employees. They had about 6,400 locomotives (train engines) and 85,338 freight cars. By 2018, they had 8,359 locomotives and 72,369 freight cars.
The types of freight cars BNSF owned included:
- 36,439 covered hoppers (for grain, sand, etc.)
- 13,690 gondolas (open-top cars for bulk materials)
- 11,428 open hoppers (similar to gondolas but with sloped bottoms for easy unloading)
- 10,470 flatcars (for large, heavy items)
- 7,948 boxcars (enclosed cars for general freight)
- 4,196 refrigerated "reefer" cars (for temperature-sensitive goods)
- 427 tank cars (for liquids or gases)
- 416 automobile carriers (for cars and trucks)
BNSF also owned thousands of domestic containers and chassis (frames for containers), as well as company service vehicles and trailers. The average age of their locomotives was 15 years, and freight cars was 14 years in 2007.
BNSF regularly invests in improving its infrastructure. In 2006, they announced a $2.4 billion plan to add more tracks, expand yards, and improve refueling stations. For example, they added double and triple tracks in places like Abo Canyon and Cajon Pass to increase how many trains can run each day.
Train Paint Schemes
Most of BNSF's powerful locomotives are painted in "Heritage" designs. These designs are mostly based on the colors of an older railroad called the Great Northern Railway: Omaha Orange and Pullman Green, with yellow stripes. Since 2005, BNSF has used black instead of dark green paint.
Many older locomotives still have their original paint colors, but they are slowly being repainted into newer BNSF designs or retired.
- Common locomotive paint schemes
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BNSF Warbonnet
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ATSF “Yellowbonnet” with Santa Fe lettering, also lettered for BNSF
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BN "Cascade Green" scheme lettered for BNSF
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BN "Grinstein" Executive scheme lettered for BNSF
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Heritage I or H1
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Heritage II or H2
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Heritage III or H3
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Heritage IV or H4
The very first locomotive to have "BNSF" painted on it was BN SD70MAC No. 9647 in August 1995. It had a special design that mixed Santa Fe's "Warbonnet" style with BN's "Executive" colors. It was sometimes called the "vomit bonnet" by train fans!
By January 1996, BNSF started putting "BNSF" labels on the front and sides of locomotives that were originally ordered for BN and ATSF. In May, they showed a new design on BN SD60M 9297. This design used orange and dark "Pullman green" from the Great Northern Railway, and also included red and silver. It was meant to represent all the major railroads that formed BN and Santa Fe. Employees voted for a simpler version of this design, which became the new "Heritage I" scheme. However, the Santa Fe "Warbonnet" design (with "BNSF" instead of "Santa Fe") also continued to be used.
On January 24, 2005, BNSF Railway officially changed its name from Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway and adopted a new logo. This new logo was applied to locomotives, and the design is also known as "Heritage III."
Since 2006, BNSF's locomotives used for yard work or local trains have been painted in the "Heritage IV" scheme. This is a simpler version of the Heritage III design, using black instead of dark green, and featuring the current BNSF logo.
See also
In Spanish: Ferrocarril BNSF para niños
