The holiday season brings a shift in people’s activities toward preparing holiday feasts and shopping lists. For BNSF, this magical time of year brings a continued commitment to delivering the goods needed to keep the holidays running smoothly.
BNSF’s attention to rail logistics starts with the men and women who work around-the-clock to ensure our freight trains move 24/7. A key cog in the logistical machine are our dispatchers, who communicate with train crews to direct the safe movement of trains across our 32,500-mile network. BNSF’s main dispatch center is at the Network Operations Center (NOC) in Fort Worth, Texas, which boasts an operating floor the size of a football field, the largest single-span projector ever made displaying weather and trains on the system and more than 100 dispatchers and support staff.
Dispatchers control train movements within their respective territories on computer monitors that display locomotive locations, maintenance work underway and software programs being used, and through constant communication with train crews. Shifts are conducted in 12-hour increments with some dispatchers working through the night, on weekends and during holidays to ensure 24/7 coverage.
