FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway aims to take over Montana Rail Link operations on Jan. 1, 2024.
Federal regulators in March approved the early termination of Montana Rail Link’s lease of the former Northern Pacific main line between Jones Junction, Mont., and Sandpoint, Idaho. Although the Surface Transportation Board’s green light meant that BNSF technically could have resumed operational control as early as April, in the months since then BNSF has been busy preparing to bring the regional railroad into the fold as the MRL Subdivision of its Montana Division.
“We want to make sure we have as smooth and clean a transition as possible,” Zak Andersen, BNSF’s chief of staff and vice president of communications, told Trains News Wire this week.
BNSF is working to integrate MRL’s human resources, operations, technology, and finance functions with its own, Andersen says. That work is proceeding on schedule, he says.
The first order of business has been to offer employment to every MRL employee who wants a job with BNSF, then coordinating their benefits packages. “We want to make sure we are taking care of those folks and transitioning them in the best way possible,” Andersen says.
BNSF executives, including CEO Katie Farmer, have held town hall meetings with MRL employees. Teams from both railroads are working on things like updating timetables, shifting to BNSF’s crew calling system, preparing BNSF dispatching workstations at MRL’s dispatching office in Missoula, and transitioning MRL customers and vendors over to BNSF’s systems.
MRL continues to operate independently and is working to complete installation of positive train control.
MRL announced in January 2022 that it was terminating the 60-year lease that was scheduled to expire in 2047. The STB decision allows MRL to discontinue service over 656.47 miles of non-contiguous rail line, which are leased from BNSF, and to discontinue MRL’s bridge-only trackage rights over 96.04 miles of rail line owned by BNSF.
BNSF has pledged to retain all of MRL’s 1,200 union and non-union employees in their current jobs, with similar pay, benefits, and seniority, and has reached agreements with the labor unions representing MRL employees.
Since leasing the trackage from Burlington Northern in 1987, MRL grew to become a critical segment of BNSF’s routes from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest, part of NP’s “Main Street of the Northwest” main line.
Bringing the former Northern Pacific main line under the control of one railroad will eliminate the need to interchange and enable BNSF to invest in capacity on the route, from train crews to passing sidings.
Montana Rail Link began operations on Oct. 31, 1987 under a 60-year lease from Burlington Northern. BN had excess capacity across Montana, favored the former Great Northern main line, and was saddled with antiquated labor contracts. So it sought to unload the 655-mile former Northern Pacific between Jones Junction and Sandpoint.
BNSF spent about $2 billion to terminate the lease, which it had sought to undo over the years.
Missoula-based MRL remained fiercely independent since it was founded by entrepreneur Dennis Washington. The railroad is part of The Washington Companies, a privately held conglomerate.
Erasing another mistake. At least they leased it out instead of tearing up the track. Now, rebuild the missing SP&S cutoff.
btw, that is Boeing. I used to be smart, I think.
chuck hatler
I question if the 6 Boeng fuselages derailed was part of the change.
When I was working at BNSF, we were told several times that we would never have more than 5 fuselages on a train because we would, if we had a wreck, bankrupt the company.
chuck hatler