News Release

BNSF Honors Four Railroads With Its First Short-Line Partnership in Growth Awards

FORT WORTH, Texas, November 9, 2004:

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) honored four of its short-line connections with BNSF’s first Short-Line Partnership in Growth Awards at BNSF’s ninth annual Short-Line Conference in October 25 at Fort Worth. Matt Rose, BNSF’s chairman, president and CEO, presented awards to:

"All of our short line connections have played a role in our joint success in 2004," said Pete Rickershauser, BNSF’s vice president, Network Development, who introduced the Partnership Award recipients. "These awards recognize the resourcefulness and achievements of those short lines that have gone beyond our expectations through innovation, determination and hard work."

Almost 300 people attended the conference, which featured discussions on BNSF’s network development, service and marketing plans for 2005 and how short lines fit into those plans. Discussions were led by Carl Ice, executive vice president and Chief Operations Officer; John Lanigan, executive vice president and Chief Marketing Officer; and other members of the BNSF leadership team.

"We envision BNSF as a high-density mainline network interchanging with a lower density feeder network of short lines operating at low cost with a high level of service," says Rickershauser. "Short lines are an integral part of realizing our BNSF network vision."

"Short lines provide an intense customer focus, resourcefulness, operational flexibility, and a local presence in their communities," says Rickershauser. "We see their role expanding in the future as they do more gathering and distribution, and aggregate blocks of cars for integration into BNSF’s network of main-line trains."

BNSF connects with more than 200 short lines, regional carriers and switch carriers. They operate almost 19,000 miles of track. Through September of this year, BNSF shipments that originated or terminated on short lines accounted for 15.5 percent, or about $1.2 billion, of BNSF revenues.

A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with about 32,500 route miles covering 28 states and two Canadian provinces. The railway is among the world's top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain than any other American railroad, transports the components of many of the products we depend on daily, and hauls enough low-sulphur coal to generate about ten percent of the electricity produced in the United States. BNSF is an industry leader in Web-enabling a variety of customer transactions at www.bnsf.com.

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