With no need to pull over, they can also go faster. A BNSF train laden with truck trailers now can make the Los Angeles- Chicago run in 64 hours, said consultant Jindel. Completing the twin-tracking will shave off as much as three hours, he said.

XPO Logistics Inc., an arranger of shipments for customers such as Costco Wholesale Corp., figures that about a third of the long-haul freight that it now sends by truck is a candidate to switch to train, Chief Strategy Officer Scott Malat said. If that rule of thumb were applied across the industry, there could be more than $100 billion of business up for grabs by railroads, he said.

“Rails have realized that, and that’s one of the main reasons they’ve been investing so much in their capacity, service and efficiency,” Malat said.


Direct Shot


In the eastern U.S., CSX Corp. is reconstructing a Washington tunnel with twin tracks and enough height to handle two containers stacked atop one another. In the west, Union Pacific Corp. is laying a second track on its 760-mile line between Los Angeles and El Pa so, Texas. It has about 150 miles to go.

Buffett’s railroad has a key advantage over Union Pacific: the most direct shot between Chicago and Los Angeles, where the region’s two ports handle about 40 percent of U.S. imports shipped in containers. Those boxes, holding finished goods like shoes, furniture and auto parts, leave ships to be hoisted onto trains or trucks.

Railroads are already winning more of this so-called intermodal business. Rail shipments of containers grew 15 percent over the last decade while other cargoes, such as coal and chemicals, dropped 11 percent.

But persuading shippers to switch still isn’t easy.

While it’s cheaper to send freight by rail, it takes longer. The cost of transferring containers to trains and then back to trucks for final delivery makes it difficult to compete on trips of less than 550 miles, said Larry Gross, a partner at FTR Transportation Intelligence. Trucks are more punctual and flexible.

This is why Tiera Adams’s job in Oklahoma is crucial for BNSF. Sporting an orange vest, white hardhat and a two-way radio on her hip, the 25-year-old is project manager for the 10-mile stretch of new line going in alongside the Southern Transcon route, which was completed in the early 1900s to bypass steep mountains in northern New Mexico.