Officials are not expecting major or immediate changes to the suburban commuter BNSF Railway Line if a $44 billion bid to buy the rail company goes through.
On Tuesday, billionaire Warren Buffett’s investment company announced plans to purchase Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, the nation’s second-largest railroad company which operates the light-green Metra line between Aurora and Chicago’s Union Station.
The deal, which still must be approved by shareholders and regulators, would not greatly affect train traffic, Burlington officials said.
“What we do as a railroad day to day will not change a lot,” said spokesman Steve Forsberg. “We will continue to operate the railroad as we have. Nothing in particular will change between now and the merger.”
The boards for both Burlington Railway and Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. have signed off on the deal. Berkshire already owns about a quarter of the railroad company’s stock.
For the purchase to go through, two-thirds of the remaining Burlington shareholders must approve, and it has to get antitrust clearance from the justice department. Officials from both companies say they anticipate the deal being finalized early next year.
After the merger, the company will likely reexamine internal functions such as employee compensation, Forsberg said, but there are no plans to alter train operations or change leadership.
“In terms of our employment levels and our service, those are not determined by who owns the company,” he said. “Those are determined by market demands and what our customers need.”
Burlington’s BNSF Railway Line is one of the Chicago area’s 11 Metra routes. It has stops in Cicero, Berwyn, Riverside, Brookfield, La Grange, Hinsdale, Westmont and Downers Grove.
A spokesman for Metra forwarded questions to Burlington officials.
Burlington also operates the Amtrak route between Chicago and Galesburg and the Transcon Railroad between Chicago and Seattle.
The cost of Berkshire’s investment in the rail company would be an estimated $34 billion, and it would take on another $10 billion in Burlington’s debt. Industry analysts say it would be the biggest purchase for Buffett, whose past acquisitions include Fruit of the Loom, Geico and Dairy Queen.
This week Buffett called the newest investment in Burlington a wager on the nation’s railroad industry.
“Most important of all, however, it’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States,” Buffett said in a news release.
