BARSTOW, Calif. — The City of Barstow has announced that BNSF Railway will expand its Barstow yard, adding an intermodal facility.
The Victor Valley News reports that the announcement came at an Oct. 31 meeting of the Barstow Area Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee. The newspaper reports that grading work for the project has begun.
BNSF has not yet announced details of the project, but it is well-situated for truck traffic. The report notes that Barstow is at the junction of interstates 15 and 40, and that state route 58, which provides a connection to California’s central valley, is being widened from two to four lanes in the Barstow area.
Where would these containers be coming from?
thanks, didn’t realize their was even a Richmond ramp. Assuming it was on paper
And I hope the construction to bypass the huge bottleneck on CA-58 at Kramer Junction continues if (when) Prop 6 passes next Tuesday. It’s a long dray from the south San Joaquin Valley for reefer containers made worse by that bottleneck. At least that Barstow dray is “additive” for eastbound intermodal service, unlike the subtractive backwards dray to Stockton.
The “Richmond” ramp is a small one by the UPS sorting facility and is closer to Pinole than Richmond proper. It’s pretty much only UPS traffic.
The BNSF service to the Port of Oakland is for ocean cans and runs on UP trackage rights on the Cal-P into the port south of Richmond.
Ian, Jason and Timothy,
Ian, with the widening of 58 in the Barstow area the entire route from Mojave to Barstow will soon be 4 lanes(I think they’re talking about the section that parallels the BNSF line as 58 is already 4 lanes from outside of Barstow to the interchange with I15).
Jason/Ian,
Fresno no longer has an intermodal ramp, if there is one it’s a paper facility and the BNSF drays the equipment for loading at Stockton ramp.
Timothy,
BNSF has a ramp in Richmond, CA, it’s been there for as long as they’ve run intermodal. The service from/to the Port of Oakland has only been around since the Port redeveloped the old Army Logistics Facility, originally you had to dray containers between the Port and the Richmond ramp(that probably ended 15 years ago, roughly).
Ian, Jason. Does BNSF utilize Port of Oakland via trackage right as its so called Richmond intermodal yard? or is there a separate stand alone facility? See BNSF shuttling containers to and from Port of Oakland
Ask because I drive past BNSF Richmond rail yard daily on my way to and from work and can’t recall ever seeing any specific intermodal facility that is actually in Richmond. The yard sees its fair share of auto racks for servicing the Port of Richmond as well as tank cars, covered hopper and misc for Chevron refinery next door & the Port of Richmond.
Ian, there’s also intermodal terminals in Stockton, Richmond, and Los Angeles.
CA 58 needs to be widened to 4 lanes the entire distance from Barstow to Mojave. Also the crossing with US 395 needs to be a proper freeway interchange and the BNSF grade crossing needs to be eliminated.
This has been an ongoing project for 40 or 50 years I think.
Barstow had intermodal many years ago. I do not recall when it was pulled. Currently, IIRC, BNSF has intermodal yards in San Bernardino, Fresno, and Richmond.