The $27 million terminal includes two production tracks totaling 6,600 feet, two lifts, and 640 paved parking spaces, BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent says.
Service is provided five days a week. Westbound service was launched on Monday, while eastbound service began Tuesday.
Schedules call for 92-hour service for westbound traffic and 102 hours for eastbound traffic, measured from terminal cutoff at origin to availability at destination.
BNSF’s intermodal expansion bucks the industry trend toward providing service in fewer lanes, particularly on Union Pacific and CSX Transportation as part of their shifts to Precision Scheduled Railroading.
The U.S. Class I railroads also have been concentrating their interline intermodal service on high-volume lanes to promote more efficient steel-wheel interchange at major gateways such as Chicago and Memphis.
BNSF operates the industry’s largest intermodal network, and its terminal in San Bernardino, Calif., some 60 miles west of Los Angeles, is running full tilt.
“I believe that a big part of the need for Barstow is that San Bernardino is out of capacity and there is no way to expand it,” says Larry Gross, an intermodal analyst. “Barstow is about 30 highway miles closer to points in the Central Valley north of Bakersfield, so it could act as a relief valve by diverting that traffic away from San Bernardino.”
Barstow sits on the Southern Transcon about 115 miles east of Los Angeles, at the junction of BNSF’s Cajon, Needles, and Mojave subdivisions. It’s also the junction of Interstates 15 and 40.
“This project will allow us to help meet our customers’ needs as efficiently as possible, while expanding our presence in Barstow, where we’ve been proud to operate for more than 130 years,” Kent says.
Yes – the intermodal terminal at Calwa (Fresno) was closed and is now used for storing piles of cotton seed. Other than local delivery, there are no customers in Barstow. There used to be a major Yellow Freight terminal there, but it closed after their strike. The truck traffic through this choke point is truly insane. An intermodal terminal “down below” with shorter route structure would seem to make more sense. Of course property values in Barstow are a fraction of what they are in the LA basin and I suspect this is the major driver behind this move.
Didn’t BNSF have a Fresno terminal in the Central Valley that they closed?
Mr Root, What about all the truckers that serve customers in the Barstow area that won’t have to use I-15 to go between San Bernardino and the Barstow area. The same applies to the San Joaquin Valley and Barstow.
Just Great……dump even more semis on already saturated highways. Hiway 58 over Tehachapi is a solid line of trucks as it is. I 15 over Cajon is even worse with Las Vegas traffic. I guess this relieves pressure on the San Berdoo terminal but does nothing for the insane traffic congestion in the Mojave Desert.
Was this terminal originally planned to be built in Victorville? I remember talk years ago of BNSF planning to open a ramp there.