FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway and J.B. Hunt will begin serving a new intermodal terminal at the Port of Tacoma, Wash., next month.
BNSF and the Northwest Seaport Alliance said the terminal will meet increased demand for intermodal service in the Seattle region. The new terminal, on 16 acres leased from the port authority, will have a capacity for 50,000 lifts annually. The Tacoma South facility will complement BNSF’s current domestic intermodal facility in Tukwila, serving NWSA’s Seattle Harbor.
BNSF will launch a direct container-only joint service with J.B. Hunt between its Tacoma South facility and Chicago. The new service will provide greater network and facility efficiency for BNSF while increasing container capacity and chassis availability for J. B. Hunt, the intermodal partners said in an announcement on Wednesday.
“The new Tacoma South facility builds upon our joint initiative with J.B. Hunt to substantially improve capacity in the intermodal marketplace while also meeting the expanding needs of our customers,” Tom Williams, BNSF group vice president, Consumer Products, said in a statement. “Our collaboration with the NWSA will help support greater warehousing and distribution needs in the fast-growing greater Seattle area.”
“Growing the NWSA’s domestic intermodal volumes has long been a goal for the Seattle and Tacoma gateway,” said Don Meyer, NWSA co-chair and Port of Tacoma commission president. “The facility will increase job opportunities while reducing truck emissions associated with moving cargo to inland markets.”
Anybody know if these trains will go east via Everett or follow the old Northern Pacific route over the mountains east to Pasco?
I’m pretty sure the NP over Stampede isn’t cleared for double stacks, so probably through Everett, maybe up the Columbia River Gorge.
BNSF can’t get enough drivers In Chicago to take the containers away, so while this sounds great for the future, it won’t help in the near term.