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News ReleaseBNSF Provides Comments to STB On DM&E/IMRL's Supplemental Environmental AppendixFORT WORTH, Texas, December 12, 2006:In a filing made Monday, December 11, to the Surface Transportation Board (STB), BNSF Railway Company said that if the STB authorizes DM&E to haul Powder River Basin (PRB) coal along the former I&M Rail Link’s (IMRL) line, it could cause substantial additional delays to time-sensitive BNSF trains at Savanna, Ill. BNSF’s transcontinental main line between the Pacific Northwest and Chicago crosses the former IMRL line at grade at Savanna enroute to the Chicago Gateway, where delays could be substantially increased by the addition of PRB coal trains regardless of what route into Chicago is used by DM&E. BNSF also said in its filing that the STB should study whether DM&E’s proposed shipment of PRB coal into Chicago over the former IMRL lines could have other environmental impacts not addressed in the Environmental Appendix filed by DM&E and Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad Corporation (IC&E), successor to IMRL, on November 8, 2006, including impacts to air quality and transportation systems, as well as noise, all of which could be faced by each community situated along the former IMRL lines in Iowa and Illinois. BNSF also said commuters traveling into Chicago on the region’s Metra operations could experience impacts from DM&E's mile-long unit coal trains which operate over the same lines as Metra commuter trains. To access BNSF’s comments please go to http://www.bnsf.com/media/speeches/pdf/stb_dmeimrl_environment.pdf A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF Railway Company operates one of the largest North American rail networks, with about 32,000 route miles in 28 states and two Canadian provinces. BNSF is among the world's top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain than any other American railroad, carries 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 |
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