(The following story by Celinda Emison appeared on the Abilene Reporter-News website on January 27, 2009.)
ABILENE, Texas — Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway will reduce its work force by 2,500 employees during the first quarter, company officials announced Tuesday.
The move will affect employees from Nolan to Brown counties, where BNSF runs in the Big Country. However, the number of Big Country employees affected is unknown.
“The actual number of employees impacted at any location can vary beyond the company’s control because train service employees’ seniority allows many of them to move around our system when furloughed and replace less senior employees at another location,” BNSF spokesman Joe Faust said.
Faust said the furloughed employees are “subject to recall in the future when freight traffic levels recover.”
“We do not know at this point when that may occur,” Faust said.
Faust said there has been no word of the closure of any railroad yard offices, which are in Sweetwater and Brownwood.
The company attributed the move to the slowed economy, saying the furloughs would reduce the company’s 41,000 employees by 5 percent in the coming months.
“Like many other companies, BNSF Railway is being impacted by current economic conditions,” Faust said. “Traffic volumes have declined recently and are not anticipated to improve in the near term. As a result, BNSF Railway is furloughing a number of employees involved with the movement of trains in several cities around the country.”
The furloughs have already begun, Faust said. BNSF has approximately 7,500 employees in Texas and operates along more than 2,500 miles of track.
Since the BNSF employees are furloughed and will be called back to work as business increases, they will not receive severance packages.
“However, impacted employees who worked at least one day in December will continue to receive health benefits for themselves and their dependents through April 30,” Faust said.
BNSF operates 32,000 miles of track in 28 states and two Canadian provinces.