News Release

BNSF Honors Three Railroads With Short-Line Achievement Awards

FORT WORTH, Texas, October 31, 2007 :

BNSF Railway Company honored three of its short-line connections with Short-Line Achievement Awards at BNSF's twelfth annual Short-Line Conference October 15 in Fort Worth. Pete Rickershauser, BNSF's vice president - Network Development, presented awards to:

• Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad of Wichita, Kan., accepted by Neal Jacobs, Kansas and Oklahoma's general manager.
• Otter Tail Valley Railroad of Fergus Falls, Minn., accepted by Pam Slifka, Otter Tail Valley's general manager.
• Portland & Western Railroad of Salem, Ore., accepted by Bruce Carswell, president and general manager of Portland & Western and senior vice president, Oregon Region, of the railroad's parent Genesee & Wyoming Inc.

 "These outstanding short lines typify the kind of relationship that exists between BNSF and our short lines and that works to the ultimate benefit of all our customers," said Rickershauser. "These awards recognize especially the resourcefulness and achievements of three short lines that have gone beyond our expectations through innovation, determination and hard work to build new business for our railroads and new service products for our shared customers."
 About 200 people attended the BNSF short line conference, which featured discussions on BNSF's network development, service and marketing plans for 2008 and how short lines fit into those plans.  The conference was chaired by Mark Schmidt, BNSF's assistant vice president, Shortline Business Development.

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. Matt Rose, chairman, president  and chief executive officer, hosted a dinner and discussed the state of the U.S. railroad industry and the need for additional rail capacity as well as answering questions from the short-line attendees in a wide-ranging question-and-answer session.   
 "Short lines provide an intense customer focus, resourcefulness, operational flexibility, and a local presence in their communities," said Rickershauser.  "We see their role expanding in the future as they bring new customers and new products to the rail network, do more gathering and distribution, and aggregate blocks of cars for integration with BNSF's network of main-line trains."
 BNSF connects with nearly 200 short lines, regional carriers and switch carriers. They operate almost 19,000 miles of track. Through August of this year, BNSF shipments that originated or terminated on short lines accounted for about 18.5 percent of BNSF revenues. Of BNSF revenues attributed to shipments originating or terminating on short lines, 56 percent were Industrial Products commodities while 27 percent were Agricultural and related products.
 A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF Railway 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 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
Fort Worth, TX 76131-2830
P.O. Box 961057
Fort Worth, TX 76161-0057
Phone: (817) 352-1000