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Media reporting about BNSF hasn't been good lately. We all know that the Empire Builder is regularly running late, but I also read news reports blaming BNSF for power companies running low on coal supplies, farmers unable to ship their grain, oil trains derailing and a WA state express produce shipper going out of business due to delays on BNSF. Meanwhile, Union Pacific is reporting much higher traffic volumes, partly due to the mess on BNSF's Hi-Line.
BNSF says that it is investing $1 billion to expand rail capacity and that the congestion problems will go away once the infrastructure problems are worked out. I'd like to ask the people more knowledgeable than I am about railroad operations this question: are the problems at BNSF really going to be resolved soon, or is this going to be a longer term mess?
Geoff Mayo Member # 153
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I don't know any specifics but I suspect the $1bn is mostly just the regular maintenance and improvements budget, rather than a brand new $1bn found hiding down the back of a couch.
Gilbert B Norman Member # 1541
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BNSF's Mr. Rose does not need to stare at negative coverage such as this when he opens his New York Times:
FARGO, N.D. — The furious pace of energy exploration in North Dakota is creating a crisis for farmers whose grain shipments have been held up by a vast new movement of oil by rail, leading to millions of dollars in agricultural losses and slower production for breakfast cereal giants like General Mills.
The backlog is only going to get worse, farmers said, as they prepared this week for what is expected to be a record crop of wheat and soybeans.
“If we can’t get this stuff out soon, a lot of it is simply going to go on the ground and rot,” said Bill Hejl, who grows soybeans, wheat and sugar beets in the town of Casselton, about 20 miles west of here.
Although the energy boom in North Dakota has led to a 2.8 percent unemployment rate, the lowest in the nation, the downside has been harder times for farmers who have long been mainstays of the state’s economy. Agriculture was North Dakota’s No. 1 industry for decades, representing a quarter of its economic base, but recent statistics show that oil and gas have become the biggest contributors to the state’s gross domestic product.
While of course the overwhelming agricultural activity is done for and by the "agricorps", the public still envisions "the small family farmer and how he can't get his grain to market, because that big villainous railroad is in the back pocket of the even bigger petroleum interests".
Vincent206 Member # 15447
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Another problem that I recently read about is that BNSF is losing workers to the oil fields. It seems that the oil producers are paying higher wages than the railroads. A look at BNSF's career page seems to confirm the situation. BNSF has 99 current job openings: 24 jobs are located in ND, 23 in MN, just 13 openings are located TX.
George Harris Member # 2077
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quote:Originally posted by Vincent206: Another problem that I recently read about is that BNSF is losing workers to the oil fields. It seems that the oil producers are paying higher wages than the railroads. A look at BNSF's career page seems to confirm the situation. BNSF has 99 current job openings: 24 jobs are located in ND, 23 in MN, just 13 openings are located TX.
I could see this many openings with no loss at all to the oilfield work. The additional trains being operated will require additional people to operate them. The days of many furloughed railroad workers waiting for upturns in traffic are gone.
As to our farmer quote in the NYT, this is just a good example of finding a somebody to make a statement to support the paper's position on the issue. I seriously doubt you are going to find rows of soybeans, sugar beets, and fields of wheat IN the town of Cassleton. Near it, maybe. It is still serious, however. Agriculture operates on very thin margins, whether you are farming 100 acres aro 10,000 acres. You have huge investments in land and equipment and it does not take much to turn a small profit into a serious loss with little to no difference in the work involved. Sounds a little like railroading, doen't it?
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