News Release

BNSF Provides Maintenance Project Information via Internet

FORT WORTH, Texas, January 5, 2004:

Responding to customers’ needs for timely, detailed information on railroad operating conditions, The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) has become the first railroad to make information on track maintenance projects available to customers via the Internet. BNSF is a subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI).

"Providing accurate, timely information is part of our commitment to meeting our customers’ expectations," says Greg Fox, BNSF’s vice president, Engineering. "This new tool will make it easier for customers to ‘see’ maintenance projects that might affect the routes on which their shipments move."

Among projects for which information is available are those included in BNSF’s major maintenance blitz Jan. 8 through Jan. 23 on 120 miles of line between Bakersfield and Fresno, Calif. More than 300 BNSF employees will work on specific track, rail and bridge renewal projects including replacement of 14 track miles of rail; installation of 38,250 wood crossties; and drainage improvements on 47,250 feet of track.

Plans are to open the Bakersfield Subdivision for 14 hours each day to operate a limited number of trains on their regular routes. In addition, daily slots have been secured to operate trains on another railroad during the maintenance blitz.

The new interactive maintenance-of-way map is available under "Planned Track

Maintenance" at http://domino.bnsf.com/website/updates.nsf/ptm?ReadForm. You can also access the site by going to www.bnsf.com, then "Media," "Network Overviews," and "Planned Track Maintenance."

Customers and other interested groups can click on a region of the map, bringing up a pop-up window that will describe any maintenance project(s) currently taking place at that location. The following information will be provided and will also be available in a printable format:

• The location of the project;
• The dates on which the project will occur, including the time of day and day of week;
• Notes regarding the type of project, a list of trains that could be affected and an estimate of potential delays. Estimated delay times will be updated frequently as operating conditions change.

The map will be updated weekly and only the current week will be displayed. If no maintenance-of-way activity is taking place at a given location, a message that "No significant maintenance activity is scheduled for this region," will show up in the box.

In addition, customers will continue to receive customer advisories concerning major maintenance projects which will also be posted to the Network Overview page on the BNSF Web site.

BNSF operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with about 32,500 route miles covering 28 states and two Canadian provinces. BNSF is an industry leader in Web-enabling a variety of customer transactions at www.bnsf.com. The railway is among the world's top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain than any other American railroad, transports the mineral components of many of the products we depend on daily, and hauls enough coal to generate about ten 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