Latest news with #BNSFRailway
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
BNSF stands up shortline rail team
BNSF Railway on Monday announced the creation of a team focused on growth of single-carload traffic. The First Mile/Last Mile team of 13 combines the Class I railroad's Shortline Development and Industrial Products Business Development teams. The group, led by General Director of Marketing Mark Ganaway, will be dedicated to growing carload volume across BNSF's 32,500-mile network. 'As our industry continues to evolve, every single carload is important to our network, and every single rail shipment helps our customers create more value for the nation's consumer,' said Tom Williams, BNSF executive vice president and chief marketing officer. 'First Mile/Last Mile will be focused on providing solutions and breaking down those barriers, leading to a more streamlined supply chain from start to finish.' The new team comes as the biggest railroads have seen a yearslong slump in carloads roughly paralleling the U.S. decline in manufacturing, but that may be changing amid a reset in American trade plicy. At the same time, the Class Is have been content to hand off the carload freight business to short lines whose lower cost structures and personalized marketing in many cases are built around low-volume the fall of 2024, BNSF announced its Shortline Select program, which combines the benefit of customized shortline service with BNSF's reach, spanning 28 states and three Canadian provinces. First Mile/Last Mile furthers BNSF's efforts to partner with short lines and develop solutions that drive growth for its First Mile/Last Mile team will be primarily based at BNSF headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. Subscribe to FreightWaves' Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your more articles by Stuart Chirls concerns pause Watco's Michigan shortline rail deal Union Pacific battery-electric hybrid locomotive completes testing Baun joins railcar builder Greenbrier as chief commercial officer Norfolk Southern expands short line interchange improvement programThe post BNSF stands up shortline rail team appeared first on FreightWaves. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Two Cheyenne sites to be studied for potential new passenger rail station
CHEYENNE – As conversations of passenger rail service returning to Colorado's front range progress, Cheyenne continues to prepare for how it may be able to tack onto the north end of the proposed railway service. On Friday, members of the Cheyenne City Council heard a presentation from Quandel Consultants, which has partnered with the Cheyenne Metropolitan Planning Organization in identifying a potential site for a new passenger rail service station in Cheyenne. Of six potential locations and plan that have been tossed into the mixer, only two remain. Randy Grauberger, a senior rail consultant for Quandel, broke those two down for the city's governing body Friday afternoon. Grauberger said he could see Cheyenne becoming a rail service hub, potentially. This is rooted in conversations of several different passenger rail projects across the country involving Cheyenne. This includes the proposed Front Range Passenger Rail service which, if realized, would connect Pueblo, Colorado, to Fort Collins, Colorado, via Denver on a BNSF Railway line. That same line runs north through Casper and Billings, Montana, via Cheyenne, which could be possibilities for passenger rail service if the project extends. Grauberger described two other projects on Union Pacific lines that could connect Salt Lake City to the Minneapolis area via Cheyenne and Rapid City, South Dakota, and another line down to Denver from Cheyenne via Greeley, Colorado, also from Salt Lake City. 'That puts Cheyenne as a hub, almost, for passenger rail service if you get Front Range Passenger Rail and then three different Amtrak routes also coming through, again, there's no certainty that those will occur, but they have been identified in a federal plan.' With momentum growing for these projects and significant federal funding available, Grauberger outlined two potential sites for Cheyenne to plant its roots back into passenger rail service, saying he recalls the last passenger rail car in Cheyenne dating back to around 30 years ago. Reed Avenue Rail Corridor In the heart of the city's West Edge revitalization efforts, Grauberger proposed two alternatives for the Reed Avenue Rail Corridor Site. One option, which he called the 'steam plant' alternative, would see a stretch of new rail constructed 30 feet to the west of the existing BNSF tracks running through the corridor north of 20th Street, penetrating through the historic steam plant. passenger rail station 2 Diagram A Grauberger said this alternative would require renovating the steam plant, which is not included in the estimated $26.7 million to $28.2 million price tag, based on the valuation of the U.S. dollar in 2023. Indicated by a brown rectangle in Diagram A, the single-level station itself would be north of the existing steam plant, indicated in light blue, and offer baggage handling, concessions, a waiting area and a covered canopy. The pink line denotes passenger access where cars or buses could drop passengers off at the station, and the yellow rectangle to the west would be a two-story parking structure. However, this plan poses the highest budget risk, Grauberger said, as it would involve an uncertain steam plant renovation and acquisition of seven parcels of land. He proposed an alternative that is slightly less expensive, does not involve a steam plant renovation and only requires the acquisition of three parcels of land. This alternative has a similar concept but instead of running through the steam plant, the rail car would load or unload passengers at the same station site and then park in a stub track to the west of the existing BNSF line if there were any oncoming freight traffic. Grauberger said there are typically only two or three freight trains per week utilizing this section of BNSF track. A stub track is a spur track or siding that dead-ends, meaning it will sit parallel to the line and pull back onto the main track when it is ready to service passengers. Diagram B indicates the stub track would line up near the east side of the steam plant and go south nearly to Lincolnway. Passenger rail station 3 Diagram B This alternative leaves the possibility for the steam plant to be renovated privately as part of the Reed Avenue beautification efforts. Grauberger said this alternative would cost an estimated $24.1 to $25.1 million, also using estimates based on the value of the U.S. dollar in 2023. 'A lot of the support was the fact that everybody's excited about Reed Avenue corridor, with or without a passenger station, but they felt that with the station that even just provides extra energy and excitement for a renovated Reed Avenue corridor and all the other exciting things that the city is anticipating,' he said. Old Happy Jack Road The second location is the more expensive of the two sites but also poses the lowest budget risk due to its location and the fact it would not require parcel acquisition as the city already owns the land. This would be a little further to the west at the intersection of Missile Drive and Old Happy Jack Road. Indicated in diagram C, the new platform is shown in the thin orange line parallel to the existing BNSF track. As in the other diagrams, the brown rectangle would be where the new station is, and the pink line would be for vehicle pick-up and drop-off access. passenger rail station site 1 Diagram C The thicker orange line would be an extension of Grant Avenue, connecting Old Happy Jack Road to Missile Drive, and the gray triangle to its east would be single-story parking. Grauberger said that while there is less development in this area, it would accommodate some of the development to its south as multiple hotels have opened in the area recently in the Old Hitching Post Urban Renewal Area. However, the land here is uneven and would require some earthwork and a two-story train station. As a result, the price tag for this site is estimated to cost $30.9 million in 2023 estimates. Similar to the other station option, it would also offer baggage handling, concessions, a waiting area and a covered canopy. Additionally, this location would require an elevator for accessibility to the second story. Next steps The timeline for this project is currently unclear. Grauberger said that if the Front Range Passenger Rail project is approved, it could be connected to Fort Collins by 2029. He estimated it could take an additional four years after that to get a connection to Cheyenne. In total, this project would require municipal and county collaboration as well as working with the Colorado state government and the federal government to finalize planning and secure funding sources. Quandel provided five recommendations to the Cheyenne City Council moving forward: * Site the station as close as practical to downtown Cheyenne; * Continue to study and develop Old Happy Jack Road and Reed Avenue Corridor sites; * Stay engaged with the Front Range Passenger Rail District and submit an application to enter the Cheyenne Extension into the FRA Corridor Identification and Development Program; * Continue to stay in communication and share information with BNSF, UP, and Amtrak; and * Stay engaged with FRA and Amtrak as the FRA moves any Long Distance Service Study recommendations forward.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This railroad has 100 extra locomotives ready to handle a container surge
While U.S. logistics providers wait out the post-trade war lull in import shipments, BNSF Railway is setting up its network to handle an expected surge following a pause in tariffs between China and the United States. 'I guess probably the most overused words in logistics is this 'air pocket' that hit us the last couple of weeks,' said Jon Gabriel, group vice president, Consumer Products, for Omaha, Nebraska-based BNSF, in an interview. 'Now, we do have some line of sight on shipments that are coming our way, but not yet. But if you look at the bookings coming out of Asia, certainly you've seen kind of that V-shaped check mark.' It was several weeks after the tariff pause went into effect in May that the railroad started to feel the import air pocket. 'We're probably three to four weeks removed from starting to see things charged back up on the West Coast, LA-Long Beach, the Northwest Seaport Alliance [of Seattle and Tacoma],' Gabriel said. 'Post-Fourth of July, we think things will be busy. We're excited again to demonstrate that we're ready to move a lot of freight from the supply chain, just like we did in the first quarter.'The railroad has also used the import downturn to position itself for the coming recovery. 'We have more than 100 locomotives that we would call a 'surge fleet,' ready to go in the state of California alone, some 9 miles of locomotives,' Gabriel said. 'And we have a large quantity of railcars set up against traffic in California, Arizona and in Washington for the Pacific Northwest. We have also taken the opportunity to do some preventative maintenance, both on tracks and rolling stock, in pre-position against the West Coast. 'So again, we feel really good about our ability to quickly respond when traffic starts to make its way into the West Coast.' Gabriel compared the resumption to the period in 2024 after an early peak season caused by shippers frontloading to avoid East Coast port labor disruptions by the International Longshoremen's Association.'I think we went through both those on the West Coast with strong performance levels, moved a lot of freight, made a lot of capacity available.' Based on what he's hearing from supply chain partners and customers, 'we suspect we've already bottomed out; we've started to see what we call 'build,' not just in traffic that's sitting on the docks, or within earshot, of the West Coast, but not yet on a railcar. That has bottomed out and started to climb again. We have started to hear from our carriers that they have gone back to essentially full vessel utilization, meaning that for a couple of weeks, if there were still boats running, they just weren't full, and now the boats are full.' Gabriel described the initial build as 'the first little bit of a wave,' and said that based on new vessel capacity strings and other transit from Asia, the surge is probably three to four weeks away. 'We'll probably see a gradual decline and then a gradual increase, followed by a step-level increase, once all this new added vessel capacity gets to the West Coast,' he said. 'The capacity is coming back into the lane.' That would include major carriers Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, which this week announced new direct service from Asia to the Port of Long Beach, but also smaller carriers such as CU Lines, seeing an opportunity in sharply rising rates. The China-based company is deploying five vessels of 2,400-2,800 twenty-foot equivalent units each from three Chinese ports to Long Beach. At the moment, Gabriel said BNSF intermodal volumes are modestly above year-ago levels, on lingering diversions away from the East Coast in late 2024 and frontloading in the first quarter by shippers looking to stay ahead of tariffs. 'It's nothing that we … feel like our network can't handle, offering considerably better transit service and experiences for our customers.' Gabriel said BNSF's network is performing at its best level since 2020, when volumes were depressed across the supply chain by the pandemic. While there are no pressure points on the network 'we do suspect that there could be some pull-forward of fourth-quarter demand to beat that August 12 [tariff pause] deadline.'Gabriel said BNSF's prior investments have helped it manage through the vagaries of the Trump administration's changing trade policy. The railroad in the past several years added 100 miles of new main track on its transcontinental route between Los Angeles and Chicago, for double-, triple- or quadruple-track configurations, to accommodate denser traffic when necessary. BNSF has also added more than 8,000 parking spaces at intermodal ramps across its network, the equivalent of one entire Alliance Intermodal Facility in Fort Worth, Texas, largest on the railroad. 'That's surge capacity for our network, and at the same time, we've added more production tracks so we can lift-on lift-off more traffic simultaneously,' Gabriel said. 'We haven't had a quote-unquote 'normal period' going back several years in the supply chain. If we recognize that's kind of a new state of life that we're in, hence, we've made all these resiliency, and I would say, recoverability, investments.' As for Chicago, the mid-American choke point for rail freight, Gabriel said BNSF has the most rail capacity of any Class I, operating a total of four facilities. Three are domestic intermodal, while the fourth is a major international rail terminal, outside Joliet, Illinois. BNSF has added on- and off-site parking throughout, and a three-year expansion project at Cicero, Illinois. has increased capacity by 30%. Manufacturing is starting to flex up in China even as companies look to diversify supply chains throughout the region rather than to North America. 'I think you saw a large movement of that during the Trump 1 tariffs in 2018,' said Gabriel. ''China Plus One' didn't necessarily mean China onshore to nearshore; there's certainly some of that, but really it was China to somewhere else in Southeast Asia, which bodes well to the West Coast and in our networks.' As for cross-border traffic with Mexico outside of automotive, Gabriel said, 'I wouldn't say that we've seen meaningful movement in nearshore activity, from a manufacturing standpoint. What we've really seen is modal conversion, and that's all we're targeting, just like we are stateside of highway traffic that's going cross-border.' Gabriel said BNSF isn't seeing much warehousing on the rails as was typical post-pandemic in 2021. 'Dwell has stayed really, really low, historically low levels. We haven't seen a lot of rolling storage on our network; the product has continued to leave our rail ramps in a relatively normal flow. Less than 12 hours for our truckload segment, 24 to 30 hours for international, somewhere in that two- to three-day morning [delivery].' That reflects well on supply chain partners, as well as the railroad. 'That tells you, if the supply chain is relatively intact and moving, there's deep, relatively good balance,' Gabriel said. 'Chassis drayage, drivers, warehouse capacity, all those elements, those underpinnings seem like they're holding up and more positioned to move traffic here throughout the next several months.' Subscribe to FreightWaves' Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your inbox. Find more articles by Stuart Chirls joins railcar builder Greenbrier as chief commercial officer Norfolk Southern expands short line interchange improvement program Rail agenda steams up as short lines blitz Congress Coal extends surprising lead in weekly US rail traffic The post This railroad has 100 extra locomotives ready to handle a container surge appeared first on FreightWaves.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Layoffs hit BNSF tech staff amid restructuring
BNSF Railway has laid off a portion of its technology services staff as part of a departmental restructuring effort. While BNSF did not disclose specific numbers, the cuts are believed to have affected between 140 and 175 workers. The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier is creating a division called 'bnsf | tech' as part of what it describes as 'a strategic initiative to transform the future of rail operations through innovation.' According to a prepared statement, this new organization 'will be infused with new investment and an expanded team of software engineers focused on building a safer, smarter railroad.' The company noted that 'some Technology Services positions are being repurposed or eliminated' as the restructured technology division will have 'a reduced reliance on contractors and third-party vendors over time.' BNSF stated it 'remains committed to supporting employees affected by personnel changes' and is providing 'applicable resources and career transition services' to those impacted by the layoffs. 'We're actively hiring for several key positions, and additional hiring will ramp up quickly through the summer,' a BNSF spokeswoman said in an email to FreightWaves. 'We expect most of the transition and hiring plan to be complete by the end of this year with additional hiring continuing into 2026.' The technology department restructuring comes amid mixed financial performance for the carrier. While BNSF reported higher earnings in the first quarter of 2025, it continues to face financial challenges. At Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on Saturday, outgoing Chief Executive Warren Buffett acknowledged these difficulties, stating, 'The railroad is earning a little more than last year, but it's not earning what it should be earning at the present time. But that's solvable and is getting solved.' The ongoing U.S. tariff war with China is also pressuring transportation providers. BNSF is the top hauler of domestic agricultural products for export and also provides intermodal services out of the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex in Southern California, where import shipments are expected to fall by more than a third in the coming weeks. The layoffs were first reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. This is not BNSF's first significant workforce reduction in recent times. The railroad laid off more than 360 mechanical employees in March 2024. Subscribe to FreightWaves' Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your inbox. Find more articles by Stuart Chirls want feds to scrap 2-person train crew rule FreightCar America Q1 net better than half of revenue Grupo Mexico rail operations earnings plunge as volume drops BNSF profits rise as volume and rates increase The post Layoffs hit BNSF tech staff amid restructuring appeared first on FreightWaves. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) Surges as Buffett Prepares Exit After 60 Years
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, Financials) is entering a new era. After 60 years at the helm, Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) is stepping back, and Greg Abel is set to take over as CEO. The handoff has been in the works for years, but now it's taking center stage as shareholders gather in Omaha. Buffett leaves behind a company that grew from a struggling textile mill into a $1.15 trillion giant. Through April, Berkshire shares are up 18% this year, handily beating the S&P 500's 5% drop. Investors still trust the Buffett playbook: patience, discipline, and plenty of dry powder. That dry powder$334.2 billion in cashhas people wondering what's next. With rates where they are, that pile could generate $14 billion a year. But did Berkshire buy anything during April's market swoon? If not, some fear it signals a defensive stance just when action is needed. Its insurance operations remain a backbone, delivering 48% of last year's $47.4 billion in operating profit. But more than half of Berkshire's 189 businesses saw earnings fall, and Trump-era tariffs still loom over units like BNSF Railway and HomeServices of America. Buffett has always set expectations low. He's said repeatedly that Berkshire won't repeat its past outperformance. Still, the company's resilience and scale give it staying power. The question now is whether Abel, a low-profile but capable operator, can lead with the same steady hand. Investors are watching closelyfor signs of continuity, confidence, and capital deployment. The Buffett era may be closing, but Berkshire's story isn't over. See insider trades for BRK.A. Explore Peter Lynch chart. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Sign in to access your portfolio
