The executive chairman of the BNSF Railway says the company is making commitments to make its track safer -- in the wake of the oil train derailment at Casselton last December.
Matt Rose told those attending the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference – the railroad has committed $5 billion dollars to upgrades -- $400 million of that in North Dakota alone. Rose says train speeds have been reduced, tracks are being repaired and more closely monitored, and t5he oil car fleet is being upgraded.
"We're committed to the long term future of this business," said Rose. "We're protecting our ability to move this commodity with a pro-active safety response. Rail has a critical role in this energy renaissance, and we take that role responsibly and very seriously. If we thought we could not move this safely, we woiuld not be making the commitments we have made in this partnership."
Rose says the $5 billion is the largest amount of money spent by any railroad to upgrade its service. He also says BNSF is doing what it can to catch up with the demand for rail cars in North Dakota. Rose says the demand for oil cars has been rising sharply for the last few years – but so has demand for grain cars. He says that’s caused bottlenecks – with agriculture shippers blaming the oil traffic for delays in shipping their commodities. Rose says BNSF is catching up.
"Rail service is a momentum game, and we are gaining," said Rose. "Although I can't promise that aall of our issues will be fixed overnight, we're moving a lot of grain."
Rose says past due car orders still remain high, but the railroad is committed to have those filled before the fall harvest.
"At the end of the day, though, we know that it will be the capacity investment that will give all our customers the service they expect," said Rose.