In Wall Street parlay: “Warren, let’s do lunch next time you’re in town”. This is an invitation for Warren Buffett to visit our small town of Terry in Eastern Montana. He will discover the rich history of Terry includes being one of the original stops on the railroad line built by the Northern Pacific railroad line.
The Great Northern Railroad was completed in 1893
The land was eventually sold by the railroad to residents of the town in Prairie County and was incorporated in 1915. We have been through a few boom and bust cycles since then but Prairie County is ripe for another boom.
The coal mining, ranching and railroad industries are our major employers. We now even have a crude oil pipeline coming through our county on its way from the Alberta, Canada oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.
Last week Tuesday, Warren Buffett agreed to buy a railroad. Not just any railroad, mind you, but no less than 131-year-old Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (BNI) railroad. Mr. Buffett is betting big time money that as the economy revives the demand for goods shipped by train will increase.
To explain his purchase of the remaining shares of BNI, Mr. Buffett gave some fascinating statistics about the enormous productivity increases the industry has accomplished. In the last 25 years, it cut employment from 500,000 to 175,000, while increasing freight by 60% and reducing track by 40%, and now accounts for 40% of the total goods moved in the country. Railroads are the greenest transportation with a ton of freight requiring only a gallon of fuel to move 470 miles.
The Burlington Northern or BNSF as it is called in our part of the world, carries coal from Montana to energy thirsty plants and ports in the East and also has a lock on hauling agricultural products from our state to the markets. In fact, BNSF controls more than 90 percent of the rail miles in Montana.
The sound of the train whistle blows forlornly four times while the trains come through town. It is a very reassuring, calming sound and an indication that the locomotives, with their valuable cargo lugging behind, are on their way East or West.
My big goal in life was to become a train engineer while I was growing up as a young boy in Holland. Maybe Warren can put in a good word in for me and I will finally get my chance to be a real engineer on one his BNSF’s locomotives.
How about it Warren? Come visit our small town and get acquainted with the folks that keep your railroad moving. We will not even bring up the fact that your 3:15 a.m. train engineer lays on his horn all the way through Terry. And in honor of your visit, we will temporarily rename the Badlands Café and Scoop Shoppe the Warren Buffet and Scoop Shoppe.
Dateline: Terry, Montana
November 7, 2009
By: Bob van der Valk
November 11th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
The Great Northern settled Terry?
Go back and check your Dutch history, please.
If you are unable to come up with a different answer, let me know and I will point you in the right direction.
Cheers,
November 14th, 2009 at 5:07 am
You are correct and I did get the names of the railroads mixed up. The Great Northern line, which was completed in 1893, ran parallel to the Missouri River along the hi-line in Northern Montana. The Milwaukee and Northern Pacific railroads ran along the Yellowstone River in Southern Montana. The Great Northern was responsible for bringing the last influx of Eastern European immigrants to this part of Montana by distributing their publications, using Evelyn Cameron’s photographs, to advertise the vast amount of land available for farming.