FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway will spend $3.6 billion under its 2026 capital plan, the railroad announced today (Jan. 26), with the majority — $2.8 billion — ticketed for infrastructure maintenance.
“Our 2026 capital plan focuses on strengthening and modernizing our network so we can continue to meet our customers’ evolving needs,” CEO Katie Farmer said in a press release. “We prioritize investing with the future in mind, improving efficiency, adding capacity, and ensuring our railroad is always ready to support growth while delivering the dependable, resilient service our customers count on.”
The maintenance program includes plans to replace 400 miles of rail and more than 2.5 million ties, along with approximately 13,000 miles of track surfacing.
The plan also calls for $358 million for expansion and efficiency projects. That figure includes completion of property acquisitions and development work for the $1.5 billion, 4,500-acre Barstow International Gateway project, as well as the $3.2 billion Logistics Park Phoenix. The latter project faces some development hurdles after officials in Maricopa County, Ariz., turned down a requested zoning change last fall [see “Arizona county decision …,” Trains.com, Nov. 5, 2025]. Other projects on tap include yard expansions in Galesburg, Ill, and Winslow, Ariz.
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I’m not a CPA (or anything close) but I have noted that routine track and roadbed maintenance counts as capital construction. Seems that this is legal per the tax code. It’s the same with highways (though tax doesn’t come into the picture). A highway project which is 90% routine pavement patching, 10% safety improvements, zero percent traffic capacity enhancement, is called a capital project.
This is what you do when the hedge funds don’t have a stranglehold on you! Meanwhile NS and CSX continue to choke on woefully inadequate infrastructure.
Note that 90% of CapEx is for replacement, not capacity. BNSF has paid tens of billions in dividends to Berkshire Hathaway. BNSF has its own flavor of PSR, but still is PSR. The only difference between Berkshire and Ancora is that Ancora says the quiet part out loud.