News Release

BNSF Announces Changes to Enhance Transportation Safety of Hazardous Materials

FORT WORTH, Texas, April 9, 2007:

Encourages Shippers to Use the Safest Tank Cars

BNSF Railway Company today announced an effort to improve the transportation safety of toxic inhalation and poison inhalation hazardous materials (TIH/PIH). BNSF will publish tariffs (public prices), effective Jan. 1, 2008, to restructure rates based on car risk factors in an effort to encourage shippers to use the most enhanced and upgraded available cars.

The tariff incentives are based on the most improved and enhanced car identified by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) as the DOT specification tank car 112J500W for anhydrous ammonia and 105J600W for chlorine. These cars can also be used for most other TIH/PIH commodities.

“Our number one priority is the safety of our employees, customers and the communities in which we operate,” says John Lanigan, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “The AAR requires that any tank cars built after Jan. 1, 2008, meet these specifications and all shippers must convert their entire fleet to these cars by Dec. 31, 2018. We hope this change will incent our TIH/PIH shippers to use the most improved and strongest tank cars available as soon as possible, thus further improving the safety of transporting these materials.

TIH/PIH shipments represent significantly less than one percent of BNSF’s total annual volume.

BNSF continues to invest significantly in improving safety and rail continues to be the safest mode for transporting hazardous materials. BNSF’s safety investments include track and structures maintenance; operating practice changes; and improved safety training for BNSF employees and community responders.

“We believe these policy changes along with our safety investments help address the concerns of the citizens in the communities where we operate,” Lanigan says. “BNSF is committed to leading the industry in the safe transportation of hazardous materials through capital investments and encouraging tank car manufacturers to build, and customers to use, improved and stronger cars.”

A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF Railway Company operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with about 32,000-route-miles in 28 states, and two Canadian provinces. The railway is among the world’s top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain than any other North American railroad, transports the components of many of the products we depend on daily, and hauls enough low-sulfur coal to generate about ten percent of the electricity produced in the United States. BNSF Railway 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