BNSF Railway carries extra intermodal, coal, and grain visitors than another railroad. And now it’s seeking to increase its comparatively small carload community by means of a mixture of improved service, extra frequent buyer switching, and tighter partnerships with its high brief line connections.
“We all know intermodal’s an enormous a part of the expansion future. We’ve developed the ag [agriculture] shuttle community on the majority aspect, and we actually like our bulk community,” BNSF Chief Advertising and marketing Officer Tom Williams mentioned in a current interview. “I don’t need it to be misplaced that we care very a lot about that single-car merchandise community, too.”
Over the previous 12 months BNSF has taken steps to enhance the effectivity of its merchandise community, beginning with pushing down terminal dwell at its hump yards and emphasizing on-time prepare departures.
These efforts paid off as BNSF posted all-time finest terminal dwell figures in Might. For the second quarter, terminal dwell was 21.9 hours, a 17% enchancment in comparison with the second quarter of 2024.
And — bucking the long-term business pattern — BNSF has elevated service frequency for 225 of its merchandise prospects. A carload facility that acquired three days of service per week, for instance, may now see a BNSF native on its spurs 5 days per week. Some five-day-per-week prospects, in the meantime, went to each day service.
Tom Williams is BNSF’s chief advertising and marketing officer. (Photograph: BNSF)
“And that, in complete, equates to about 21,000 further annualized service days per 12 months,” Williams mentioned. The hope is that the extra frequent native service will result in quantity progress as soon as the commercial economic system rebounds.
The railway’s Brief Line Choose program, rolled out final fall to enhance interchange efficiency, has reduce dwell almost in half on collaborating brief strains. Quantity on the Brief Line Choose railroads is up round 5% this 12 months, in comparison with flat volumes on different brief line connections in addition to the stability of BNSF’s merchandise enterprise.
“The entire title of the sport of what we’ve been doing within the merchandise community is enhancing the speed,” Williams mentioned.
The mixture of extra environment friendly terminals and extra frequent native service helps vehicles spin quicker from origin to vacation spot and return. Automotive-miles per day are up 25% in comparison with a 12 months in the past, which shaves two days off the transit time for a automobile that strikes 1,000 miles.
What this implies is that prospects can transfer the identical quantity of freight utilizing fewer vehicles, or put their abruptly surplus vehicles to work hauling extra freight. “It’s good for us, it’s good for the shoppers,” Williams mentioned. “We’ve decreased the stock 12 months over 12 months by 20%.”
Amid these operational enhancements, BNSF in June launched a brand new First Mile/Final Mile group that features the 13 individuals from its Shortline Growth and Industrial Merchandise Enterprise Growth groups.
Their focus is on understanding the wants of BNSF’s merchandise prospects. “This isn’t about us going to the shopper and telling them that is our community and … you match it otherwise you don’t,” Williams mentioned.
Quite, BNSF desires to collaborate with its carload prospects, find out how rail matches into their provide chains, and the way native service tweaks may higher match their wants and result in progress, he defined.
Brief Line Choose, in the meantime, goals to tighten the business relationship with high connecting railroads. Taking part strains embrace Genesee & Wyoming’s Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway, Burlington Junction Railway, Genesee & Wyoming’s Portland & Western Railway, TNW Company’s Texas Northwestern Railroad and Crimson River Valley & Western, and Watco’s Timber Rock Railroad.
“One-third of our carload freight originates or terminates on a brief line,” mentioned Mark Ganaway, who leads BNSF’s shortline staff. “That’s a good portion of our enterprise. We would have liked a solution to transfer from transactional relationships to strategic partnerships.”
Final 12 months BNSF dealt with 2.43 million merchandise carloads, a determine that doesn’t embrace coal or grain.
“Interchanging greater than 260,000 carloads per 12 months, G&W and BNSF have an excellent partnership. Having two G&W railroads — Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway within the east and Portland & Western Railroad within the west — take part within the BNSF Shortline Choose program is a pure step within the evolution of our relationship,” mentioned Kimberly Thompson, a vp of gross sales and advertising and marketing at G&W. “BNSF’s program faucets into the strengths of each a Class I and a brief line to broaden each of our market attain and drive extra visitors to rail as a safer and extra sustainable different to trucking.”
BNSF is including shortline transload places to its Premier Transload Program listing. It’s additionally increasing its Licensed Websites to incorporate places on brief strains. The websites are rail-served properties which are prepared for growth. Amongst them: A web site within the Cell Gateway Park on the AGR in Alabama and a web site on the Portland & Western that’s 45 miles north of Portland and can emphasize import/export containerized visitors.
The subsequent step in BNSF’s merchandise progress efforts can be enhancing the suite of expertise instruments that prospects use to work together with the railroad, mentioned Williams. Historically, BNSF has bought off-the-shelf expertise functions. Now it’s constructing an in-house tech staff that can develop BNSF-specific techniques.
Prospects ought to see enhancements rolled out over the subsequent six to 18 months, Williams mentioned.
