WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board has postponed the start of a plan by BNSF Railway and Union Pacific to contract out dispatching of Southern California’s Alameda Corridor.
In a decision announced Thursday, the board postponed the move — which was to be effective today (Friday, July 12) — “to provide sufficient time for evaluation of the matters raised” by the notice filed last month to place dispatching in the hands of the Alameda Belt Line, a neutral firm owned equally by BNSF and UP. The brief decision did not elaborate on those matters. The postponement is effective until further order by the board.
The filing last month said the two railroads and the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, which manages the infrastructure of the 16.1-mile, grade-separated route owned by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, believe the move “will promote traffic fluidity … under an entity that will be equally accountable to both the line’s users” [see “Third party to take over dispatching of Alameda Corridor,” Trains News Wire, June 14, 2024].
UP currently dispatches the line, with BNSF oversight.
