BNSF rail expansion good for Montana economy

Lochiel Edwards knows no better place to check the pulse of the Montana economy than the iron arteries of the Burlington Northern Sante Fe.

When 120-car grain trains roll across the Hi-Line bound for Pacific Northwest seaports and when tanker cars of Bakken crude pulse across the southern Montana line to Billings refineries, the state prospers. Lately, the prognosis has been very good, said Edwards, a wheat farmer who has spent years negotiating with BNSF for the Montana Grain Growers Association.

BNSF is spending $4.1 billion on capital improvements this year, many of them to serve the Bakken oilfield along the Montana border with North Dakota. Information about where those capital improvements will be made has been scarce. Stock reports for the railroad haven’t been available since 2009, when Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. paid $34 billion for all outstanding BNSF shares and took the nation’s largest railroad off the trading board.

By Tom Lutey

Full Story: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/bnsf-rail-expansion-good-for-montana-economy/article_9017f7a8-6f64-5a9f-a98e-21f90911b181.html