American rail freight company BNSF Railway is planning to build a new facility in Barstow, in southern California. The Barstow International Gateway (BIG) will allow for the direct transfer of containers from ships to rail at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. “We’re aiming to start construction by 2025, with a potential open date of 2027,” Lena Kent, BNSF General Director of Public Affairs, told RailFreight.com. The total cost of the project will be around 1,5 billion euros.

In the current situation, most of the international cargo arrives in 40-foot containers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. From there, the containers are transported by road to warehouses inland. This process, as Kent pointed out, leads to issues with the supply chain distribution process as well as negatively impacts the environment.

First facility of its kind

The new facility will feature a rail yard, intermodal facility, and warehouses for moving freight from international to domestic containers. The goods will reach the facility in Barstow through the Alameda Corridor, which connects the two ports with BNSF’s mainlines and the Union Pacific Railroad that terminate near downtown Los Angeles. The same treatment is reserved for Westbound trains to more efficiently bring trains from the BIG to the two Californian ports.

Among the advantages brought by the rail facility, there is the fact that it would speed up the transport of smaller blocks of containers that currently often dwell at the ports. Thanks to the BIG, these blocks of containers can be moved sooner via rail to Barstow, where they can be reassembled into new trains. This process would significantly reduce the dwelling time and help to decongest the ports.

The intermodal facility will help facilitate the transfer of shipping containers between the rail and warehouses by using electric yard trucks. When it comes to the new warehouses, Kent stated that they will be dedicated to “repackaging and processing goods arriving at the Intermodal Facility from international containers into domestic containers”. From there, the domestic containers will be brought back to the intermodal facility to continue their journey through the country

When the BIG will be finished, moving containers off the ports will be significantly quicker and operations at BNSF’s hubs are expected to be much more efficient. As Kent highlighted, this will be the first facility of its kind and the project will create 20,000 direct and indirect jobs.

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