Originally published at: BNSF CEO: Rail merger still a “significant threat” to economy, consumers - FreightWaves
The merger filing by Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern doesn’t change the fact that the merger is bad for the economy and consumers, BNSF CEO Katie Farmer said.
Whatever BNSF boo hoo alligater tears. I think it will go through.
Oh, Katie, Katie, Katie !! We expected these comments out of you. We expected you to come out with your little ■■■ blazing quicker than one can say, “Quantum.” But you are waaaay too late and waaaay too under-powered.
Let’s dispense with the performative outrage first. Warning America that the UP–NS merger is a “significant threat to the economy and consumers” is rich coming from the CEO of a railroad that has spent the last decade perfecting selective integration through partnerships that just happen to benefit the largest shippers on earth. You don’t oppose consolidation, Katie. You oppose consolidation that you don’t control.
You argue this merger will “leave shippers with fewer options,” while simultaneously holding up “partnerships and collaboration” as the virtuous alternative. Translation: vertical integration is dangerous when it goes through the Surface Transportation Board, but perfectly fine when it’s accomplished quietly through bespoke commercial architectures, capacity guarantees, and platform lock-in. Funny how that works.
You warn that the benefits “accrue primarily to shareholders.” Of course they do. Railroads are private enterprises that must internalize every mile of steel, every bridge, every signal, every bad winter decision. Meanwhile, trucking — rail’s real competitor — operates on publicly funded highways and sends the bill to taxpayers. But somehow the existential threat to consumers is a merger between two private infrastructure systems, not the policy regime that subsidizes their competition.
You invoke “past mergers” and “service meltdowns,” as if history proves consolidation itself is the sin. History actually shows something else: railroads fail when integration is rushed, capital is starved, labor knowledge is discarded, and governance collapses. Penn Central didn’t fail because it was big. It failed because it tried to be clever faster than the system could learn itself.
And let’s talk about Chicago — the place where you say nothing, because saying something would expose the problem. Interchange friction, divided accountability, and variance-driven unreliability are not solved by partnerships. They are preserved by them. If collaboration were enough, Chicago wouldn’t still be the stress fracture of the national rail network forty years after deregulation.
You say customers didn’t ask for this merger. True. Customers rarely ask for network redesign, infrastructure rationalization, or institutional repair. They ask for reliability, predictability, and one throat to choke when things go wrong. That’s not monopoly talk. That’s accountability.
Katie, this isn’t about protecting consumers from a dangerous merger. It’s about protecting a very comfortable status quo — one where integration happens quietly for a few, while everyone else lives with the handoffs.
The UP–NS merger may fail. It may succeed. But opposing it in the name of competition while defending unexamined platform integration is not principled. It’s convenient.
And regulators are not nearly as naive as this press release assumes.