Ties Weekly Update #25

7 October, 2004

CONTINUED EXCELLENT PRODUCTION ON ALL CREWS

As of October 7, 2004, we have installed over 200,000 of the 245,000 ties now scheduled to be installed by November 24^th 2004. The tie crews had an excellent week of production!!

¨ Due to favorability in some of our other projects we have been able to commit to another 10,000 ties in the Quad Cities area and they will be delivered and installed within the next two weeks. The total number of ties to be installed by these two properties is now 245,000 and this number will be used as our goal number in all future updates.

¨ As of October 7 over 235,000 ties have been delivered to our properties and are either installed, on the ground, or in the process of being unloaded by the Brandt truck.

¨ Taking all things into consideration, the siding additions, the siding extensions, the Florence connection and the additional projects, we now expect to install over 245,000 ties this production season.

¨ The Railworks tie crew is over ½ way done on their portion of the tie project and are currently done installing ties between De Smet and Iroquois. We expect this crew to finish all the way to Huron by early the week of October 18^th.

¨ The LA Colo tie gang returned Friday the 17^th and began installing ties at MP 232 on the Huron sub heading westward toward the SD state line. This crew is currently near Tyler and is expected to complete their portion of the tie installation somewhere around October 12^th.

¨ Foreman Steve Koser’s tie crew who had just completed the installation of 5,000 ties in the Quad Cities area and were just getting ready to gear up to complete the CWR curve program, when they received word that they would be installing another 10,000 ties in the terminal area. The crew has changed their schedule and are now focused on installing these last ties, and in fact have nearly half of them in already. This crew has installed over 1,100 ties on two separate occasions this week, which is a new IC&E daily record for a crew of their size. If their production remains at this level, they will also set the record for ties installed in a 4 day week and a 5 day week.

¨ Jim Nemec’s west tie gang completed their tie project near Dakota Jct. late last week and has also completed the tie installation in the Smithwick area. For the remainder of the year this crew will be installing ties between Wasta and Wall and will assist with a switch project at Colony.