Buffet’s railways switch from coal to oil

Don’t worry, Warren Buffet, who spent $26.5 billion on acquiring Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad and Union Pacific Corp., is weathering the coal downturn by switching to oil and gas made plentiful by the hydraulic fracturing glut. Bloomberg has the story.

Union Pacific’s shale business will probably grow to almost 400,000 carloads in 2012, Chief Executive Officer Jack Koraleski said on a July 19 conference call. That’s roughly double the number of carloads the Omaha, Nebraska-based company moved from the Bakken shale formation in the northern U.S. in 2011.