News Release

Five Customers Receive BNSF Award

FORT WORTH, Texas, July 15, 2002:

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company today announced five customers have received its Third Annual Load and Ride Solutions Award. The following companies were recognized for consistently practicing safe and damage-free loading procedures: Hub Group, Inc.; J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc.; Roadway Express, Inc.; Ford Motor Company; and NYK Line.

“Preventing damage to freight is critical in the transportation industry and our customers play a vital role,” says Pat Carter, BNSF’s assistant vice president, Resource Protection Solutions. “Properly prepared shipments reduce the risk of injury, unnecessary train delays and damage to our customers’ products. These shippers have demonstrated that they have a high commitment to ensuring a damage-free shipping environment.”

Criteria for the award are based on adherence to approved BNSF and Association of American Railroads (AAR) loading methods, number of freight claims filed (excluding claims related to derailments or theft), and ratio of freight claims to total freight charges. BNSF also looks at requests from the shipper for assistance with loading from BNSF’s Load and Ride Solutions (LARS) and cooperation with LARS in correcting any unsafe loading practices. In addition, BNSF evaluates the number of distress incidents and shipments that are improperly loaded and can shift and create unsafe conditions.

Load and Ride Solutions, a part of BNSF’s Resource Protection Solutions, ensures that cargo moves loss- and damage-free across the BNSF system by providing customers assistance with loading, securement, theft deterrents and physical security. More information on Load and Ride Solutions can be found at www.bnsf.com.

A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with 33,000 route miles covering 28 states and two Canadian provinces. BNSF is an industry leader in Web-enabling a wide variety of customer transactions at www.bnsf.com. The railway moves more intermodal traffic than any other rail system in the world, is America’s largest grain-hauling railroad, transports the mineral components of many of the products we depend on daily, and hauls enough coal to generate more than 10 percent of the electricity produced in the United States.

BNSF Headquarters
BNSF Railway Company
2650 Lou Menk Dr. 2nd Floor
P.O. Box 961057
Fort Worth, TX 76161-0057
Phone: (817) 352-1000