(BNSF Railway circulated the following on January 5.)
FORT WORTH, Texas — Beginning Jan. 8, 2009, BNSF Railway Company will dispatch seven maintenance crews to replace rail and ties between Clovis and Jarales, N.M; Baca, N.M. and Winslow, Ariz.; and Crookton and Griffith, Ariz.
Two hundred and fifty BNSF employees and contractors will work until April replacing approximately 150,000 ties and almost 150 track miles of rail. The total cost of these three projects is more than $30 million. Crews will utilize equipment such as cranes, welders and ballast tampers to replace rail at an estimated rate of one mile a day. Materials replaced on the rail line will be reused or recycled in keeping with BNSF’s environmental stewardship policies.
To allow the BNSF crew time to replace the rail, sections of track will be closed periodically during rail and tie replacement until the work is complete.
About BNSF
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-sulfur 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.