Having 17 years at a class one here are my thoughts. Bnsf wasn’t bad before buffet took over. There was very little change in the top management and most are still around from pre buffet. The current ceo made a trip to my terminal, we had two directions from local management before we went out to work, keep the noise to a minimum and don’t go near the sleeper cars. The current ceo didn’t bother to come in and meet the crews and chat, but she did have one hell of a security detail. Currently at my terminal, upper management has gutted the extra boards, down to the bare minimum, meaning most of the time jobs don’t get filled and through freight waits, more crews dying online due to poor dispatcher and chief dispatcher decisions, trying to run trains to big for weather conditions and crews die in the yard waiting on air. They have gone to the bare minimum on engines and horsepower, we sent out a 10000 ton train with one road unit a month ago, ended using having engine problems and there it sat for 7 hours till some bean counter decided they needed more horsepower to make it up hills. Now that winter is here management has also drastically cut the section guys down to a minimum and they are required to cover a few hundred miles of track. They talk about safety and how good it is, but from this switchmans point of view, it’s all talk, and the company knows safety costs money and when it comes down to it, the company takes a pass on it. Now if people don’t know, bnsf is implementing a new “ policy “ called hi-viz. personally it doesn’t affect me much since I don’t abuse the system but it will lead to quite a few people being fired for availability. When I mention upper management I am referring to those fine folks in Fort Worth. I don’t buy the no engines theory either, both bnsf and UP have hundreds of engines stored. I also want to comment on what I believe is going on. There isn’t a problem with manpower or the employees that are currently working for bnsf or any class 1 railroad. I believe it’s a management issue and how most of these folks have never had to work under these policies or work rules. I also believe that here at bnsf our top management is more concerned about the class A shareholders than what is actually good for the customers and the employees. I believe that was s why there is a manpower and engine shortage, more employees and engines mean less profit for the class A shareholders. Thanks for reading my rant, just some thoughts from a switchman. Oh, and I won’t go into the huuuge push that bnsf is making for one man crews. I could go on and on for a while, but I won’t.