Pros
With so many employees retiring in the next 5-10 years there are excellent opportunities for career advancement within the organization. You do not contribute to social security and instead contribute to railroad retirement which is safer and more likely to be there when us younger people retire. Very competitive with their salary. The company has a great outlook for the future because shipping by trains is much more efficient than shipping by trucks. BNSF really emphasizes making an employees development a priority so they allow a lot of horizontal moves across the different functional areas; many employees that have worked their for 40 years will mention how it feels like they have had 3 or 4 different careers.
Cons
It is very union worker based which makes a management position at BNSF much more challenging because of the different union agreements. Currently, the employee base is very old making it somewhat intimidating for younger just out of college kids entering the company.