News Release

Joint BNSF - Kansas Program Improves Sight Distance at Rail Crossings

KANSAS CITY, Kansas, May 22, 2002:

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) and the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) are using an innovative joint agreement to cost-effectively improve sight distances on public railroad crossings.

BNSF and KDOT are sharing the cost of cutting and removing trees, brush and weeds at 261 public grade crossings on nearly 300-miles of BNSF right of way in south-central Kansas stretching from the Oklahoma border to the Chase / Lyon County line, and from Newton, south through Wichita to Winfield, Kan. The 261 crossings are located on state or country roads.

The vegetation control program is being jointly paid for by BNSF and KDOT in a coordinated effort to improve sight distances on the roadways and the railroad’s right of way at each crossing.

Al Cathcart, coordinating engineer for KDOT, recently reviewed the work completed to date and says "the safety improvement made to these crossings is very dramatic, especially for the relative low cost per crossing. The approaching drivers now have much improved lines of sight to observe approaching trains. The procedures being employed will control the growth of taller vegetation for several years, making these improvements to crossings very cost effective."

The joint vegetation control contract BNSF and KDOT implemented calls for clearing state and county roads for a distance of 100 feet on either side of signalized public grades crossings, and for a distance of 300 feet on each side of non-signalized grade crossings. The contract also requires BNSF right of way to be cleared for a distance of 500 feet on each side of the public crossings.

“Grade crossing safety is one of the most important goals we share with Kansas and the other states BNSF serves,” says Gary Nyberg, manager of vegetation control for BNSF, “and maintaining visibility at crossings is an important part of that effort.” Nyberg says the joint vegetation control contract with Kansas has been so effective that BNSF plans to approach other states with the idea.

The contractor performing the work on behalf of BNSF and KDOT is using a treatment designed to eliminate unwanted broadleaf weeds and annuals for one growing season while leaving desirable grass cover in place. The contractor will also treat cut stumps and stubble with a herbicide to prevent re-sprouting.

BNSF is also working closely with states such as Kansas and local communities across its system to conduct thousands of Operation Lifesaver grade crossing safety presentations each year to school children and to drivers education students, truck and school bus drivers and emergency response personnel.

In addition, BNSF and state agencies are working together to permanently reduce the risk of vehicle collisions with trains by closing crossings that aren’t needed because more effective routes over the tracks are nearby. This joint BNSF / state initiative closed 1150 crossings throughout BNSF’s rail network in 2000 and 2001.

A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF operates one of the largest rail networks in North America, with 33,000 route miles of track covering 28 states and two Canadian provinces. The railway moves more intermodal traffic than any other rail system in the world, is America’s largest grain-hauling railroad, and hauls enough coal to generate more than 10 percent of the electricity produced in the United States.

BNSF Headquarters
BNSF Railway Company
2650 Lou Menk Dr. 2nd Floor
P.O. Box 961057
Fort Worth, TX 76161-0057
Phone: (817) 352-1000