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BNSF Railway Co.’s economic development efforts paid off last year. The Class I attracted 127 new facilities or plant expansions along its lines, generating about $4 billion worth of development and creating more than 4,000 new jobs.

For example, BNSF's economic development team helped a local volunteer business group in Weston County, Wyo., revitalize the area by creating the Upton Regional Industrial Site. The 600-acre industrial park is attracting new businesses to the area and will serve as a site for a BNSF transloading facility.

"The creation of the new industrial park not only brought in new businesses but also spurred the development of new housing in the area for the first time in 20 years,” said Vann Cunningham, BNSF assistant vice president of economic development, in a prepared statement.

BNSF also helped locate ethanol plants in California, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas; agriculture producers and processors in Mississippi, North and South Dakota, New Mexico and Oregon; and steel industries in Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Texas.