Investing to Grow

CIO, September, 2008 by Nancy Weil

So when I began my travels this year to meet with CIOs in their offices, one visit I was really excited about was BNSF. There's nothing like a locomotive and miles of track through remote country to ignite the imagination! What I didn't expect to find was a lot of sophisticated IT. Yet that icon of the American past, the iron horse, has incorporated technology into just about everything it does, as Stephanie Overby found in reporting our cover story, "Investing for the Long Haul."

IT helps the railroads route trains more efficiently, letting them increase capacity virtually without spending as much to lay new track. Fuel-optimization systems calculate the best speed at which to operate the train, based on many variables. Sensors reveal if any wheels have warped, increasing...