BNSF Railway and its connecting partners Norfolk Southern and the Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) recently announced the launch of a service that provides inland point intermodal traffic from the Pacific Northwest destined to and connecting through Chicago with a three day faster service product.
“This service product collaboration was an outcome of listening to our joint customers, who emphasized the desire to use more rail, but would need to also reduce inventory carrying and total landed transportation costs out of their networks in 2025,” Jon Gabriel, BNSF Group Consumer Products vice president, said. “We are proud to deliver a solution that accomplishes these goals.”
The NWSA Seattle/Tacoma port complex has the lowest rail dwell in the United States so far this year with a less than two day dwell. Dwell is the average time a car is at a terminal boundaries. It begins with a customer release or train arrival event and ends with a delivery, customer placement or train departure.
The reduced dock dwell was the result of operational changes emphasizing rail loading and results in a total ship time to Chicago of six days, the fastest from any North America Pacific Northwest gateway.
All interchange traffic will occur in one location for a single crew swap.