The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) announced Saturday it plans to invest more than $1.5 billion to construct a rail facility in Southern California.
The state-of-the-art master-planned Barstow International Gateway will be a 4,500-acre integrated rail facility on the west side of Barstow. It will consist of a rail yard, intermodal facility, and warehouses for transloading freight from international containers to domestic ones.
“By allowing for more efficient transfer of cargo directly between ships and rail, the Barstow International Gateway will maximize rail and distribution efficiency regionally and across the U.S. supply chain and reduce truck traffic and freeway congestion in the Los Angeles Basin and the Inland Empire,” BNSF President and CEO Katie Farmer said. “This will play a critical role in improving fluidity throughout our rail network, moving containers off the ports quicker, and facilitating improved efficiency at our existing intermodal hubs, including those in the Midwest and Texas. The facility will also have an important positive economic impact, including the creation of new, local railroad jobs,” said Farmer.
Officials said the new facility, the first of its kind being developed by a Class 1 railroad, would allow the direct transfer of containers from ships at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to trains. Containers would travel through the Alameda Corridor, onto the BNSF mainline, and up to Barstow. Once the containers reach the Barstow International Gateway, they will be processed using clean-energy powered cargo-handling equipment, then staged and put onto trains moving east via BNSF’s rail network. Westbound freight would also be processed at the facility, the company said.
“The significance of BNSF’s investment to improve the supply chain here in California cannot be overstated. Rail plays a critical role in moving goods safely and efficiently while reducing emissions due to congestion in many of our high-traffic corridors,” said Trelynd Bradley, Deputy Director of Sustainable Freight and Supply Chain Development at the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. He added, “Projects like BNSF’s will work to strengthen our inland local economies, such as that of Barstow in San Bernardino County. We look forward to continuing to work with projects like these, as well as others, to drive transformative investments that will enhance and elevate California’s supply chain ecosystem for a more efficient and resilient tomorrow.”