People

BNSF is a place where people work with true purpose, find many ways to build interesting and meaningful careers and become an essential part of one of the best teams in the nation.

Day in, day out, we are empowered to use our strengths, our knowledge, and our experience to move our company – and our country – forward, doing what it takes to move freight safely and efficiently while we drive innovation, create growth opportunities, and build a stronger and smarter future for us all.

At BNSF, we move the nation every day, powering a supply chain that’s the lifeblood of our economy and sustaining the American way of life in communities across the country. What we do is a team sport, and we’re driven to win – pulling ahead of the competition while always putting safety first, taking care of each other, and delivering a level of collaboration, service and capability for our customers that no one else can.

We take pride in our rich heritage of innovation and service that stretches back 175 years. We’re building on our history of resilience and moving forward with what we’ve learned along the way.

Together, we’re creating the railroad of the future, one that combines technology, innovation, and hard work to create new opportunities for our customers, our communities, and for each other.

Employee Safety

At BNSF, we believe every accident or injury is preventable.

We will achieve an operation free of accidents and injuries through:

• A Culture where safety is a core value and the most important thing we do.
• A Work Environment that provides resources and tools to eliminate or safeguard all known hazards.
• Work Practices and Training for all employees that help drive continuous improvement in safety processes and performance.
• An Empowered Workforce where employees take responsibility for their personal safety as well as the safety of fellow employees and the communities we serve.

Celebrating an Industry-Leading, Record-Setting Year
We completed a record year for workplace safety in 2023, with the lowest injury frequency rate in our company’s 175-year history. We operated our 32,500-mile network without loss of life, and with the fewest number of employee injuries ever.

Learn more

Employee Training

Our multi-faceted approach to safety training for BNSF team members includes formal training programs based on technical rules, rail industry recommendations and federal regulations, as well as BNSF-specific initiatives developed and conducted by our experts. We invest in a combination of field, on-the-job, long-distance and technical safety training programs.

Internal Recognition

Two prominent annual awards, one recognizing individuals and one teams, celebrate our culture of safety and the people who make it possible.

2023 Safety Employees of the Year
Recognizing team members in multiple departments who embody the BNSF commitment to safety.

Engineering

• Robert Malone, Signals Inspector, Red River Division
• John Garcez, Gang/Section Foreman, California Division

Mechanical

• Waylon Marr, Heartland Division Carman Freight, Heartland Division

Transportation

• Thomas Starr, Switch Foreman, Twin Cities Division

2023 Safety Bell Recipients
Recognizing BNSF teams that achieve the lowest injury-frequency ratios.

• Best Overall Division – Heartland Division
• Best Transportation Team – Northwest Division
• Best Mechanical Shop – Commerce, California, Diesel Shop
• Best Field Mechanical – Montana Division
• Best Engineering Team – California Division

Customer Safety & Security

From pickup to delivery, we are committed to keeping our customers’ shipments safe and secure. We employ our own fully certified state law enforcement officers who carry full police and arrest powers. BNSF Police conduct proactive, uniformed patrol to combat trespassing and cargo theft across the network. We have a collaborative approach with state and local authorities, customers and citizens, and we partner with customers, providing free, on-site security consultation.

At our intermodal facilities, we utilize site-specific security procedures, processes, and physical security to deliver a high degree of protection. At select locations, BNSF installed automated gate systems to verify the contents of the shipment, the driver's identity, freight destination and equipment condition.

Additionally, our policy of timely Rail Incident Reports by BNSF supervisors ensures we take appropriate accountability for any incidents and damage to cargo and develop solutions to prevent them in the future.

Total Rewards

We believe in providing competitive total rewards, including compensation, bonus opportunities, investment and retirement packages, health and welfare coverage, holistic wellness & employee assistance programs, career development, and paid time-off. Our total reward programs are designed to compensate employees fairly, promote internal equity, reward individual performance, and link pay directly with key business strategies and company goals. Our competitive total rewards approach enhances BNSF Railway’s ability to recruit, retain, and motivate strong-performing employees.

At BNSF, diversity and inclusion are foundational values, and have been core to our shared Vision and Values since our inception.

As members of the BNSF community, our employees are entitled to:

• Be treated with dignity and respect.
• Have equal access to tools, resources, training and development opportunities.
• Have equal opportunity to achieve their full potential.

Recognition includes:

• 2023-2024 Equality 100 Award, Human Rights Campaign, 100/100 Score
• 2023 50 Best Companies for Latinas to Work for in the US, Latina Style
• 2023 NDC Index, Best U.S. Companies for Diversity
• 2023 Best Companies for Diversity, Women and Millennials, Women’s Choice Awards
• 2023 Best Employers for Women, Forbes
• 2023 DEI and Leadership Awards, Brandon Hall
• 2023 Diversity Impact Awards
• 2023 Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion, DEI
• 2023 Military Friendly Employers
• 2023 Best Place for Working Parents
• 2023 Military Times Best for Vets Employers

Full List of Awards

Self-Identification

We recently expanded our voluntary self-identification form to include LGBTQ+ to better understand the composition of our workforce and expand our diversity and inclusion initiatives. This helped us improve our score from 90 to 100/100 on the 2023 Corporate Equality Index Score by the Human Rights Campaign.
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Three Pillars of Focus

To promote diversity and inclusion initiatives we are guided and inspired to action through Three Pillars of Focus.

1. Representation: Increase diversity throughout the organization.
2. Development: Develop leaders who create a diverse and inclusive culture.
3. Accountability: Ensure diversity and inclusion remain a strategic priority to have a greater impact.

Diversity Councils

Diversity Councils spread throughout our network give employees an opportunity to promote a positive culture, including educating and heightening diversity awareness. The Diversity Councils engage members in community service projects as well as spread “Respect Every Day.” This initiative is focused on improving awareness about what constitutes offensive or inappropriate behavior and providing tools to stop it.

Business Resource Groups

Within our company and our communities, we have many ways for our employees and their teams to get involved as a member of one of our Business Resource Groups (BRGs) and employee-led groups. Our groups provide employees development opportunities, the ability to network, to gain exposure to senior leaders and to work together to build creative solutions to business problems.

Employee-Led Groups
Diversity Council
Women EnRoute

Business Resource Groups (BRGs)
Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD)
Asian Pacific Islander Network (APIN)
Business Resource and Veterans Engagement (BRAVE)
Emerging Leaders Network (ELN)
Hispanic Leadership Council (HLC)
PRIDE+
North American Nations (NAN)
Women’s Network (WN)
Working Caregivers (WC)
Disability Inclusion Alliance (DIA)

We are committed to fair treatment of all our customers and suppliers. We regularly collaborate with our customers to create enhanced supply chain solutions. For instance, in 2023, we launched Quantum, a J.B. Hunt and BNSF service, a new breakthrough intermodal service that offers our customers the consistency, agility and speed needed to transport service-sensitive highway freight using rail. And we work closely with companies to help them integrate more rail into their supply chains in order to decrease their costs and carbon emissions.

Another example of working closely with customers is our Agricultural Ombudsman program. Through the program, BNSF Managers of Agricultural Development are placed in key locations around the BNSF network to build critical relationships with farmers and their crop associations, locally and nationally. Building and maintaining these relationships are crucial to ensuring open and productive communication between farmers, grain companies, farm organizations and appointed and elected officials. Additionally, our Ombudsmen work with customers to address issues across the gamut of the customer-railroad relationship and serve as a critical starting point for customers who wish to expand and grow on BNSF.

We also value our suppliers. We purchase material and service items from an extensive list of sources. We seek to acquire quality goods and services at the lowest total cost of ownership by working resourcefully, efficiently, effectively and ethically with both current and prospective suppliers.

Special Train Trips for Special Communities

To say thank you to our employees, their families and the communities they live in, we run the Employee Appreciation Special. This beautiful train tours various parts of our 32,500-mile network bringing fun activities and scenic rides in vintage stainless steel passenger cars. In 2023, the EAS – made up of 14 restored passenger railcars – visited Gallup, New Mexico; Winslow and Phoenix, Arizona; and Needles, Barstow, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and Bakersfield, California. Almost 6,800 passengers boarded the business cars throughout June. Our employees and their families enjoyed a 90-minute round-trip ride.

Another beloved tradition is the BNSF Holiday Express, making festive visits to several communities on the BNSF network and entertaining the families of military veterans and first responders. Visits typically include donations to local nonprofits that support veterans.

BNSF Foundation

The primary way we contribute to national, regional and local charitable organizations is through the BNSF Railway Foundation. The BNSF Railway Foundation supports causes and programs including:

• Veteran-focused groups including Wreaths Across America, the USO, Toys for Tots, Military Miles Marathons, the Wounded Warrior Project and the Big Red Challenge.
• Groups who promote health and education in our communities, such as All Kids Bike, the Tulsa Dream League and the Museum of Science & History in Memphis.
• Groups who support environmental protection and conservation efforts, such as Friends of the Mississippi River and the Lake Effect Conservancy.

Employee Giving

Every year, our generous BNSF team members, at locations across our network, volunteer and contribute their time and talents to numerous charitable causes in their communities. The BNSF Railway Foundation’s Employee Matching Gift Program matches employees’ financial donations to public charities dollar for dollar up to $20,000 per employee per year. The foundation matches about $1 million annually to more than 700 organizations.

Read more about:

Amarillo employees creating birthday boxes for foster children

Cicero intermodal yard employees supporting local Boys Club

BNSF employees using matching gifts to support causes