The BNSF Railway says that the purchase of Norfolk Southern offered by Union Pacific will reduce rail competition, increase tariffs, reduce services and will likely increase the collapse of the activity.
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On Tuesday, BNSF presented a position document in the UP-NS combination and encouraged customers to express their concerns with the surface transport board to review the proposal to create the first US transcontinent railway.
“No client is asking for a UP-NS merger. This is due to Wall Street, promising a high shareholder benefit, “the BNSF said.
BNSF says shippers will have to cover the $ 85 billion transaction costs, as the UP 10% volume is not available. As a result, the BNSF reported that the UP will increase captive traffic and aggressively reduce costs.
“At the expense of smaller customers, communities and short lines, up (NSYS: UNP) will double their historical practice to use the current increased market power to kidnap customers’ rates and prefer high density strips while closing small-scale strips,” BNSF said.
BNSF said the UP would close 300 intermodal bands if the merger is confirmed on the basis of the assumption that all current UP-CSX (NASDAQ: CSX) and BNSF-NS (NYSC: NSC) will be terminated.
UP and NS will not provide detailed information about their activity plan until they submit their merger application. Once upon a time, from October 29th. Until January 29th. UP has opened four intermodal terminals over the last four years, adding domestic and international services, and managers said they believe that intermodal growth engines.
1st Class Megamegers and smaller, such as the Canadian Pacific in 2023. With the acquisition of Kansas City Southern, the integration-related service problems, the BNSF noted.
“During the pandemic, the American supply chain was severely challenged, and the potential impact on the supply chain, the economy and the proposed merger user is too risky,” BNSF said.
The BNSF has also been concerned about the ability of STB to determine the effective conditions that protect Shippers’ competitive capabilities.
“The STB had to order the UP/SP merger obligations and allow BNSF to get within a dozen times,” the BNSF said of the conditions set by the Board as part of the UP in 1996. Acquisition “Southern Pacific”.
The BNSF said Interline’s cooperation, not the merger with the CSX, is a proper competitive response to the UP-NS merger. “We should not be regarded as correction to correct the competitive imbalance that the UP-NS is trying to create,” the BNSF said.
Instead, the BNSF said the supply chain requires more cooperation between railways, such as intermodal intermodal service, which BNSF and CSX declared in August.
“These partnerships provide more, no less opportunities for customers, while preserving competition and flexibility. We can also implement them now, after two years, after an expensive and difficult regulation process,” BNSF said.
Tom Williams, Chief Marketing Officer of the BNSF, urged customers to express his concern with STB.
“The STB cannot assume that all the effects of this merger are that they need to hear directly from stakeholders like you,” he wrote to clients on Monday. “Your feedback will help to ensure that the Board clearly understand the practical consequences for shippers, industries and communities.”
UP and NS have said their transcontinental merger will improve competition, increase economy, help importers and exporters in global markets and support American production revitalization.
And they said that when providing one -row services, growth would include, including the area of the water pool, located in several hundred miles from the Mississippi River, which is no Land between Eastern and Western rail due to complications related to exchange and short transportation.
The railways say they are so confident that their combination will increase in volume that they have promised that no union members will lose their work due to merger.
“Union Pacific is disappointed that the part of the BNSF like Berkshire Hathaway (NYS: BRK-B), which will release misinformation, publicly traded. For example, they say Union Pacific has a plan to close 300 intermodal bands that are unreasonable and infinitely false, “said Spokeswoman Kristen South.
She noted that more than 100 shippers wrote letters supporting the merger, and there were more than 100 letters in the work.
Hundreds of shippers representing the production, agricultural and energy sectors expressed their resistance to the transaction.
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POST BNSF for senders: Talk about the UP-NS merger first appeared in Freightwaves.