BNSF Commended for ‘Excellent Service’
Written by Marybeth Luczak, Executive Editor
While “concerns about railroad service are well documented from shippers and advocacy groups,” and railroads have struggled like other labor-intensive industries to fill open positions, “our experience with railroad service has been very good,” Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. (AECI) CEO and General Manager David Tudor informed the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in a recent letter.
AECI is owned by and provides wholesale power to a system of six regional transmission cooperatives and their 51 local distribution cooperatives. This cooperative system is said to deliver electricity to 2.1 million member-consumers behind the 935,000 meters served in Missouri, northeast Oklahoma and southeast Iowa.
AECI praised the STB “for its interest in, and actions to monitor and report Class I railroad service,” and noted that “[r]eliable deliveries of low sulfur Wyoming coal by rail assures fuel security and helps to keep energy costs low, which allows us to deliver electricity to our member-owners affordably.” BNSF serves the company, a member of the NCTA and the Western Fuels Association, and provides unit coal train rail service from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin coal mines to AECI’s two power plants in Missouri. “We load a trainload of coal every 16 hours on average,” David Tudor reported in his letter dated June 27 and entered into the STB record July 20. “We receive and unload 700 carloads of coal a week at each plant on average. Coal delivery requires a 1,900-mile round trip for one plant and a 2,600-mile round trip for the other. Normal round-trip cycle-time is 6.5 days and 9.5 days, respectively. Except for the occasional weather induced delay, we have experienced excellent service from the BNSF.”
Tudor said such service “takes on many forms”:
- “It begins with contract structure, service design and customer advocacy.
- “It requires a long lens with focus on proper reinvestment in existing infrastructure and new investment in projects that improve service and reliable deliveries.
- “And it requires diligent, efficient, and responsive day to day operations support.”
Tudor told STB that BNSF “has embraced these concepts and it shows in the level of service we experience.” He said that this year, “BNSF has consistently cycled our sets faster than normal. We are able to schedule and source locomotive power for switching into and out of rail yards when needed. Our unit coal trains are managed and tracked professionally. Beyond unit train service, when shipping special items like large power transformers and other bulk electric power components, BNSF has worked tirelessly providing close coordination between BNSF business lines, and with adjacent railroads, to ensure efficient and timely movements on BNSF’s system and through interchanges with other railroads. Strategic business partners work together to ensure each other’s success.”
Tudor summed up: “We have consistently found the BNSF, and the people who operate it, to be very interested in our success, which is measured by delivering affordable, reliable electricity to our member owners.”
