The
BNSF Railway is one of the largest
freight railroad networks in
North America, second to the
Union Pacific Railroad (UP) (its primary competitor for
Western U.S. freight), and is one of seven North American
Class I railroads. It has 48,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three
transcontinental routes that provide high-speed links between the western and eastern United States. BNSF trains traveled over 169 million miles in 2010, more than any other North American railroad. The BNSF and UP have a
duopoly on all transcontinental freight rail lines in the Western U.S. and shares
trackage rights over thousands of miles of track.