Moving America's military machines - Rail Update - Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co.'s role in "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

Railway Age, June, 2003

A little-publicized but essential part of the U.S. military's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" plan was "Operation Iron Horse"--movement of military equipment for mobilization efforts in the Middle East.

Burlington Northern and Santa Fe's military movements are just one example of the cooperation and support provided by the railroad industry. Beginning Jan. 20, BNSF transported a wide variety of supplies from five western U.S. bases: Fort Hood, Tex.; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Sill, Okla.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; and Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., to ports in Corpus Christi and Beaumont, Tex. Stryker tanks, jeeps, rocket launchers, bridge-building equipment, and even a portable hospital were among the items shipped. Specially trained military personnel loaded the equipment onto unit trains, which were under constant security surveillance. As of mid-May, BNSF had moved 121 trains of 80 cars each

"We generally had one to two days notice rather than the traditional three-to-five days, so the logistics and response time of our people was demanding," says BNSF Vice President-Corporate Relations Dick Russack. "As a result, BNSF employees braced themselves for contingencies that changed at the drop of a hat. Additionally, because of the sensitive nature of the operation, personnel often worked with sketchier information than they otherwise might have received from any other type of customer. Further, our Resource Protection group worked in tandem with military security and local police to provide a higher level of protection as specified by the military bases. Our Mechanical department had to quickly 'pre-trip,' or test, military-owned railroad equipment before each movement to ensure that it met Federal Railroad Administration standards."

"The military is a very important, but very different, customer for our department," says BNSF Industrial Products Sales Group Assistant Vice President Dave Hallberg. "Because the equipment differs from the other products BNSF transports, Operation Iron Horse was quite challenging."

BNSF routinely transports military equipment domestically from base to base, but not since Operation Desert Storm in 1991 has it moved equipment from fort to port in such massive volumes. BNSF says it agreed to give the military trains top priority. "That meant committing crews and locomotives whenever and wherever necessary, while still meeting the needs of BNSF's other customers," says Russack. "Locomotive utilization directors did some expert planning to execute tight turns on locomotives and other rail equipment to get it in place for the next run."

BNSF says it experienced some minor congestion at the ports. "The crowding occurred because troops at the forts could load the trains faster than they could be unloaded at the journey's end," says Russack. "However, we anticipated the problem and worked hard to keep traffic flowing by staging trains at the forts before launching more trains into the pipeline.

"Our operations crews did their part to expedite trains, including not taking days off during the moves," says Russack. "BNSF representatives held daily two-hour calls with Military Traffic Management Command in Fort Eustice, Va., to detail each day's plan, base-by-base, train-by-train, and car-by-car."

BNSF also participated in humanitarian efforts to help the people of Iraq. In what the Agricultural Products Operations team called "Operation Freedom Grain," BNSF moved four 110-car unit trains containing about 1.7 million bushels of wheat from Enid, Okla., to Galveston, Tex. The shipment was part of 200,000 metric tons of wheat from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, an emergency reserve administered under the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture. It is available for humanitarian relief in developing countries, allowing the U.S. to respond to unanticipated food crises.