FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway will add service from the port of Houston to Alliance, Texas, and Denver next month.
“As part of our continued commitment to adjusting to our customers’ and the marketplace’s needs to enable growth and the efficient movement of shipments, BNSF is expanding our network of lane offerings with new intermodal service options from the Barbours Cut Container Terminal at the Port of Houston,” BNSF said in a service advisory on Monday. “Taking advantage of the live lift capabilities and other expanded capacity and technology advancements at our Alliance, Texas, Intermodal Facility, this new on-dock terminal rail option will serve the greater Dallas/Fort Worth and Denver markets.”
Service between Barbours Cut and Alliance, as well as from Barbours Cut to Denver, will begin on June 2. Alliance-Barbours Cut service will operate on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while the Denver service will operate on Fridays.
“Based on vessel arrival, these new intermodal service schedule updates have the potential to increase in frequency to meet growing intermodal demand at the Port of Houston,” BNSF said.
Port Houston jumped from No. 7 to No. 5 in the ranking of top U.S. container ports in terms of TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) handled in 2022, Port Houston Chairman Ric Campo announced at the Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority regular meeting on May 2.
“Our import and export volume reached record numbers in 2022 and is considered one of the fastest growing ports in the U.S. in loaded imports and loaded exports, and Houston now owns a 7% market share of the total U.S. container business,” Campo said.
According to the Journal of Commerce, Port Houston ranked No. 5 in loaded imports and No. 3 in loaded export containers for 2022. Transpacific was the top trade lane for loaded imports and grew 25.7% in 2022. Transatlantic was the top trade lane for loaded exports, increasing by 20.5% in 2022.
I can’t see BNSF being happy with the short haul Houston-Alliance lane, unless they use Alliance as a hub and Houston as one of the spokes.
Denver is kind of A sink hole with more traffic going there than originates there.
Things may have changed, but that’s the opinion of this worn out trucker.
How can they compete with trucks with 1 or 2 trains a week?
Dennis, it depends on if they think the truckers are really the competition or not. This new route structure looks a lot like the GPA Inland Port network. The rail becomes an extension of the steamship service and solves the need to move a lot of containers in a short period of time. The rail becomes in effect a supplemental steamship service. This concept works very well in Georgia and South Carolina.
Good news for everyone here. And by the way Bill Stephens sure looks like an example of some short to medium length markets. BNSF leads the way again.