BNSF Railway   

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad is an integral part of our community, not only because they are one of our largest employers, but because of their economic impact. Overall, BNSF operates in 28 states and 2 Canadian Provinces.  They have 82,000 rail cars, 6,400 locomotives, 32,000 route miles and 40,000 employees. In Nebraska, BNSF has rail yards in Alliance, Lincoln, McCook, and Omaha. They have an intermodal hub center in Omaha and shops in Alliance, Lincoln, and Havelock. They own 1,441 route miles with 94 route miles trackage rights.  They originate 130,345 carloadings, with 2,295,147 handled within the state, and terminate 68,574 carloadings.  The year-end total number of employees in Nebraska for 2007 was 4,649 with a payroll of $295,254,477. They estimate that about 1,800 of those employees work in Alliance.

For more than a century, BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) has played an important role in Nebraska’s economy. As one of the state’s primary freight rail transporters, BNSF’s 32,000-mile network links Nebraska’s agricultural industry to markets around the world. Annually, BNSF moves about 115,000 carloads of wheat, corn and other agricultural products to plants around the country for domestic use and to ports for export abroad. And they are helping Nebraska farmers reach new markets by providing a vital transportation link for the state’s emerging ethanol industry.

As a national leader in intermodal transportation (truck trailers or containers), BNSF delivers a wide variety of consumer products, packaged goods, paper products, mail, clothes, appliances, electronics, and automobiles to Nebraska retailers and businesses. They also deliver cleaner-burning Powder River Basin coal from Wyoming and Montana to provide the energy that helps power the Nebraska economy, lumber and other building materials from the Northwest and the Southeast to satisfy construction demands throughout the state, and fertilizer from plants around the country to feed crops on the Nebraska plains. BNSF moves more than 2 million carloads of freight in Nebraska annually and is among the state’s largest employers. Since 2005, BNSF has been instrumental in locating 18 new or expanded facilities in Nebraska, creating approximately 40 jobs and $3 million in investments. Projects include Universal Warehouse in Lincoln, Millard Lumber in Waverly, and Omaha Transload in Omaha. Supporting BNSF’s rail network in Nebraska are more than 4,600 dedicated men and women who earn a combined payroll of more than $295 million. In 2007, BNSF hired nearly 530 new employees to fill existing and newly created positions in Nebraska.

In addition, the BNSF Foundation plays an active role in multiple communities within the state, and contributed more than $260,000 in donations to various local charities last year alone. Whenever there is a fundraiser, or a benefit, BNSF can be counted on to contribute to the cause since in our community, there is a direct connection to the railroad and its employees.  The employees will volunteer for many of our community boards and some elected positions, such as our Mayor.  Box Butte Development Corporation has an employee of BNSF on our Board of Directors.  BNSF also supports the local economic development efforts financially with contributions for our budget.  They also support the local Chamber of Commerce financially and with volunteers.  Many non-profit organizations in the community can boast that they have at least one BNSF employee helping them, along with many spouses and children of employees.

Capital Commitments

Over the past three years, BNSF has invested nearly $524 million in the state of Nebraska for capacity expansion and maintenance. In 2008, BNSF plans to invest more than $106 million in Nebraska, including improvements to the yard in Alliance, numerous double tracking projects, and maintenance.

Coal

More than 10 percent of the electricity produced in the United States is generated from coal hauled by BNSF. More than 90 percent of the coal BNSF hauls comes from the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming and Montana and is 60 percent lower in sulfur than most other U.S. coal sources.

Agricultural

BNSF is one of the largest grain-hauling railroads in the United States. In fact, BNSF hauls enough grain to supply 900 million people with a year’s supply of bread. Approximately 50 percent of the agricultural commodities traffic BNSF hauls is transported to export points in the Pacific Northwest, Gulf of Mexico, Mexico and the Great Lakes.

Consumer

Many items found in local retail stores, restaurants and automobile dealerships were shipped on a BNSF train. Each year BNSF moves about 10 percent of the vehicles sold in the United States; enough canned beverages to supply every resident of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles with a beverage a day; and enough sugar to bake 3 million batches of cookies.

Industrial

BNSF is a leader in transporting forest products, chemicals, metals and other products that drive our economy. Each year BNSF transports enough lumber to build more than 500,000 homes; enough asphalt to lay a single lane road four times around the equator; and enough coiled sheet steel to lay the unrolled coils end to end 12 times between New York City and Seattle, WA.

As you can see from the statistics, BNSF plays a major role in Alliance as well as the state.  They not only provide employment opportunities, they contribute economically with payroll, volunteerism, and financial contributions to many causes within our community as well.  BNSF will assist in any way possible in the community by sponsoring events. They have even gone so far as to donate and refurbish a locomotive to be put on display at one of the local parks.  The company and employees also built one of the parks with playground equipment.

There is probably not one person in Alliance that can say they have no ties with BNSF railway. A person is either an employee, a relative of an employee, or is affected in one way or another by the economic impact of the railway. We are sure that is true for each of the cities that BNSF operates in.