Warren Buffett and BNSF

So five weeks ago, Warren Buffett surprised the heck out of me by buying a ten percent equity stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe. He surprised a lot of other people, too. It's not that BNSF was a bad investment; I own some, and it has been my experience that knowledgeable people who want to invest in railroads generally choose it as one of the sector's best investments.

I was surprised at his timing. I bought in last summer when the seasonal slump hit, and kicked myself for buying in too soon when the slump proved to be deeper and longer than I expected. I bought pretty early, so the price had just recovered when Buffett bought in, and raised it almost ten percent (graph here). So, my first question is, why now? I understand that it's impossible to time the market, and I grant that even a company that's driven by a relatively small number of decision makers like BH must have some internal process that prevents it from turning on a dime. If Buffett was looking at BNSF, was he looking at them a year ago? And if not, what made them more appealing now that a prosperous business cycle is another year into its course? The Transcon improvements were well in hand, and their completion was predictable - so why did he wait to buy in?

The other big question - and I got a few takers when I asked it here - was, "what were the other two lines that he purchased?" He bought a smaller stake in two other properties that wasn't large enough to require an SEC notification. While the overall sector has floated upward with BNSF, the other shoes haven't dropped yet. When they do, some lucky people are going to make a bit of money - and my bet is that those lucky people are going to be Norfolk Southern and Canadian National shareholders.