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.
