(The following story by Michael Hooper appeared on The Capital-Journal website on July 1.)
TOPEKA, Kan. — BNSF Railway has invested more than $8 million over the past three years in new buildings and equipment to enable the company’s Topeka shops to handle more repair work as it rebuilds locomotives to meet tougher emission standards.
“We’re the only locomotive back shop in the BNSF system,” said Jim Hall, general foreman for locomotive class overhaul and wrecks in Topeka.
The Topeka System Maintenance Terminal, on 120 acres in East Topeka, has 425 employees and a $61 million budget for 2007, including a $1.2 million capital budget.
The employees, earning $18 to $22 per hour, include machinists, electricians, sheet metal workers, boilermakers, carmen and laborers.
As environmental regulations have changed, BNSF Railway has been forced to adapt its locomotives to cut down pollution. The Topeka shops rebuild older locomotives to meet exhaust emission standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency, said David Seep, director of environmental engineering and program development for BNSF Railway in Topeka.
A special package of parts from the manufacturer is used to upgrade a locomotive to reduce toxic emissions. Emissions from diesel-powered locomotives, such as NOx, have significant health and environmental effects. NOx contributes to smog and acid rain.
Seep said that while the EPA requires the emission improvements to locomotives undergoing overhaul, the same isn’t true for diesel trucks or boats when they are rebuilt.
Topeka BNSF employees overhauled 425 locomotives in 2005, 395 in 2006 and plan to overhaul 372 in 2007. They operate in three shifts five days a week and can overhaul a locomotive in 10 days. BNSF staff change 36 to 43 major components, depending on the model of locomotive, Hall said.
Some employees came from West Burlington, Iowa, after that shop was consolidated with the Topeka shops about four years ago.
“They brought a lot of experience,” Hall said.
AJ Kenney, a machinist, said he worked in West Burlington, Iowa, for 30 years before transferring to Topeka about three and a half years ago and buying a home here.
“There’s more to do here in Topeka,” he said. “Topeka is easy to get around. But my wife likes to go home (to Iowa). We still have kids there. We probably go home once a month.”
His seniority enabled Kenney to get on the day shift.
“They keep us hopping,” he said. “It makes the day go faster.”
But employment remains lean at the shops, which had 670 workers in 2000. After the economy tanked in 2001, BNSF, based in Fort Worth, Texas, looked for ways to cut expenses and streamline its maintenance staff. When the U.S. economy picked up again by 2004, the company rebounded and captured the interest of legendary Omaha, Neb., investor Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, which is now the largest shareholder of BNSF stock, owning about 10 percent of the company. Stock in BNSF (NYSE: BNI) has tripled in the past four years to close Friday at $85.14 per share.
BNSF history
The story of the Topeka shops is evident throughout the complex. Shop 1 was constructed in 1868 and is still in use today for maintenance of business cars. Another building nearby was used in the early 1900s to hand out cash on paydays. The oldest shop buildings were part of the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, founded in Topeka in 1859 by Cyrus Holliday. That company merged with Burlington Northern in 1995.
Rick Galvan, shop superintendent, said shop employees take a lot of pride in their work rebuilding locomotives.
Most locomotives today are made by General Electric and Electro-Motive. A diesel-electric locomotive has a diesel engine that turns a generator, which, in turn, produces electricity that powers traction motors that connect to the axles of the locomotive.
When BNSF buys a locomotive, it acquires a maintenance agreement with the manufacturer. GE rebuilds diesel engines for the locomotives in Grove City, Pa., and ships them to Topeka. GE sometimes subcontracts maintenance work to the Topeka shops. So the shops essentially compete for jobs.
“They know if we don’t stay competitive, the work could go somewhere else,” Galvan said.
BNSF has 6,300 active locomotives and others for sale sitting in its Topeka rail yard. Hall said the manufacturer doesn’t provide upgrade kits for cleaner emissions for BNSF’s oldest locomotives.
The work in the shops is dangerous. Staff members said it takes a lot of concentration, focus and awareness to complete a day’s work without injury. The Topeka BNSF shops recently celebrated 120 days without a reportable injury by serving catfish, chicken, potatoes and coleslaw to employees.
New investment
Step inside BNSF Railway’s locomotive repair shops today and you will see massive cranes overhead moving heavy parts.
Workers weld steel together. Rock ‘n’ roll blasts from an employee’s radio. Two men take apart a wheel assembly.
In one of its new buildings, the company installed a drop pit and moveable table so workers could remove a traction motor wheel assembly without raising the entire locomotive to remove the assembly, which would take three people four to six hours to accomplish.
Now, a locomotive is placed on the drop pit table track with the traction motor wheel assembly directly over the moveable table.
The motor wheel assembly is disconnected and lowered, by a hydraulic cylinder, on the table into a transfer pit below the locomotive. Upon reaching the bottom of the pit, the assembly transverses 50 feet perpendicular to the locomotive and is raised by another lift back to the main floor level, where it can be repaired.
The removal process takes two people one hour.
“This saves us a lot of time,” Hall said.