Item 2. Description of Properties

The properties used by Berkshire’s business segments are summarized in this section. Berkshire’s railroad and utilities and energy businesses, in particular, utilize considerable physical assets in their businesses.

Railroad Business—Burlington Northern Santa Fe

Through BNSF Railway, BNSF operates approximately 32,500 route miles of track (excluding multiple main tracks, yard tracks and sidings) in 28 states, and also operates in three Canadian provinces. BNSF owns over 23,000 route miles, including easements, and operates over 9,000 route miles of trackage rights that permit BNSF to operate its trains with its crews over other railroads’ tracks. As of December 31, 2020, the total BNSF Railway system, including single and multiple main tracks, yard tracks and sidings, consisted of over 50,000 operated miles of track.

BNSF operates various facilities and equipment to support its transportation system, including its infrastructure, locomotives and freight cars. It also owns or leases other equipment to support rail operations, such as vehicles. Support facilities for rail operations include yards and terminals throughout its rail network, system locomotive shops to perform locomotive servicing and maintenance, a centralized network operations center for train dispatching and network operations monitoring and management, computers, telecommunications equipment, signal systems and other support systems. Transfer facilities are maintained for rail-to-rail as well as intermodal transfer of containers, trailers and other freight traffic and include approximately 25 intermodal hubs located across the system. BNSF owns or holds under non-cancelable leases exceeding one year approximately 7,700 locomotives and 66,000 freight cars, in addition to maintenance of way and other equipment.

In the ordinary course of business, BNSF incurs significant costs in repairing and maintaining its properties. In 2020, BNSF recorded approximately $2 billion in repairs and maintenance expense.

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Utilities and Energy Businesses—Berkshire Hathaway Energy

BHE’s energy properties consist of the physical assets necessary to support its electricity and natural gas businesses. Properties of BHE’s electricity businesses include electric generation, transmission and distribution facilities, as well as coal mining assets that support certain of BHE’s electric generating facilities. Properties of BHE’s natural gas businesses include natural gas distribution facilities, interstate pipelines, storage facilities, liquefied natural gas facilities, compressor stations and meter stations. The transmission and distribution assets are primarily within each of BHE’s utility service territories. In addition to these physical assets, BHE has rights-of-way, mineral rights and water rights that enable BHE to utilize its facilities. Pursuant to separate financing agreements, the majority of these properties are pledged or encumbered to support or otherwise provide the security for the related subsidiary debt. BHE or its affiliates own or have interests in the following types of operating electric generating facilities at December 31, 2020:

As of December 31, 2020, BHE’s subsidiaries also have electric generating facilities that are under construction in Iowa, Wyoming and Montana having total Facility Net Capacity and Net Owned Capacity of 603 MW.

PacifiCorp, MEC and NV Energy own electric transmission and distribution systems, including approximately 27,600 miles of transmission lines and approximately 1,650 substations and gas distribution facilities, including approximately 27,600 miles of gas mains and service lines.

Northern Powergrid (Northeast) and Northern Powergrid (Yorkshire) operate an electricity distribution network that includes approximately 17,300 miles of overhead lines, approximately 42,800 miles of underground cables and approximately 770 major substations. AltaLink’s electricity transmission system includes approximately 8,200 miles of transmission lines and approximately 310 substations.

The BHE GT&S pipeline system consists of approximately 5,400 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipelines. BHE GT&S provides natural gas storage and transportation service to on-system customers in Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Additionally, through multiple interconnects with other pipelines, BHE GT&S provides services to off-system customers broadly in the Northeast, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Storage services are provided through the operation of 17 underground natural gas storage fields located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. BHE GT&S also operates, as the general partner, and owns a 25% limited partnership interest in one liquefied natural gas export, import and storage facility in Maryland and operates and has ownership interests in three modular liquefied natural gas facilities in Alabama, Florida and Pennsylvania.

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Northern Natural’s pipeline system consists of approximately 14,500 miles of natural gas pipelines, including approximately 6,000 miles of mainline transmission pipelines and approximately 8,500 miles of branch and lateral pipelines. Northern Natural’s end-use and distribution market area includes points in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Michigan and Illinois and its natural gas supply and delivery service area includes points in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Storage services are provided through the operation of one underground natural gas storage field in Iowa, two underground natural gas storage facilities in Kansas and two liquefied natural gas storage peaking units, one in Iowa and one in Minnesota.

Kern River’s system consists of approximately 1,400 miles of natural gas pipelines, which extends from the system’s point of origination in Wyoming through the Central Rocky Mountains into California.

Other Segments

Significant physical properties used by Berkshire’s other business segments are summarized below: