While rail transport of crude oil is getting a lot of attention these days, railroads are playing a bigger part in the U.S. domestic energy expansion, as BNSF Railway Co.’s $4.3 billion capital budget for 2013 indicates.

North American shale plays are as much a part of the business plan for the Berkshire Hathaway rail system as they are for major exploration and production companies, a Fort Worth, TX-based spokesperson told NGI’s Shale Daily.

BNSF is currently averaging seven or eight crude-carrying trains daily from all the shale plays. It also ships a lot of materials for onshore drilling.

The railroad giant operates 1,400 trains, which carry a multitude of products over its 32,500 miles of track. “We are also continuing to set new records for domestic intermodal traffic that moves in many of the same lanes as the crude-by-rail traffic,” the spokesperson said.

“BNSF not only transports crude by rail, but also moves a great deal of materials and equipment for the oil and gas sector, such as sand,” which is a hydraulic fracturing proppant, said the spokesperson. For every new well in a play like the Bakken formation in North Dakota, BNSF ships 40 carloads of inbound materials, including pipe, to well sites. The materials originate across the railroad’s network.

In the Bakken alone, crude shipping customers have invested nearly $1 billion to develop 10 origin facilities and tank cars, BNSF said.

Owned by Omaha-based billionaire Warren Buffett, who also owns a network of energy utilities, BNSF expects to serve 35 destination facilities by the end of this year, offering service to 30% of U.S. refineries in 14 states, according to the spokesperson.

While BNSF does not segment its capital budget by the different commodities being shipped, it breaks down the investments by state, noting recently that this year it plans to spend $220 million in North Dakota and $115 million in Montana — states where the crude oil shipments are increasing.

“We expect the improvements to support all of the Bakken shale unit train traffic,” the spokesperson said.

Eric Slifka, CEO of Global Partners LP, an oil storage and transporter in the Bakken, talked about continued expansion programs during a recent 2Q2013 conference call. He said the Columbus, ND, transload rail terminal’s 170,000 bbl storage capacity expansion should be completed in early 2014, and a 280,000 bbl storage facility in Beulah, ND, will start operations by the end of this year.

“Pipeline capacity expectations haven’t changed, and there is still going to be a need for rail in this game as oil comes out of the ground in these developing plays,” said Global Partners COO Mark Romaine.