Rail customers can now receive detailed, timely, customized information about rail service conditions that affect their shipments.

The Customer Notification System, the first of its kind in the rail industry, is offered by The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) through its Customer Subscription Service.

The service advisory notices describe the type of service condition, including the date, time and location where service is being affected, and when normal service will resume. Service conditions about which BNSF customers can receive information include:

-- Weather-related interruptions
-- Maintenance-of-way information
-- Traffic embargoes
-- Track outages
-- Derailments

Notifications also include a list by car of any of a customer's shipments potentially impacted by the service condition -- including the equipment numbers and the estimated time of arrival (ETA) at the destination, as reflected in BNSF's systems at the time of an interruption. Customers will be sent updated ETA information as it becomes available.

A sample of the new type of advisory is at http://www.bnsf.com/html_emails/svcadv.html

"We listened when our customers asked for detailed, timely information about service conditions," says Fritz Draper, BNSF's vice president, Business Development. "With the new system, customers will receive notices only if their traffic is affected, so the information will be more relevant to their day-to-day operations."

In addition to the service advisories, the BNSF Customer Subscription Service enables customers to automatically receive, via e-mail, exception notifications on shipments, customer updates on various topics, and public pricing information. Customers can specify what information they want and when they want to receive it.

Customers can sign up to receive information on:

-- Shipment Status (Bad-ordered Equipment, Estimated Time of Arrival or Change in Arrival)
-- Customer Updates (Marketing News, Facility Updates, iPower News, Customer Letters)
-- Pricing Information (Intermodal Public Pricing, Pricing Updates)

Customers can access BNSF's Customer Subscription Service at https://www.bnsf.com/bnsf.sph/myBNSF . Customers who are not currently iPower users will need to register for iPower at the same website.