gateway is a BIGdeal

and Long Beach to trains headed to BNSF’s mainline up to Barstow, about 130 miles (210 km) away, also via the Alameda Corridor.

Barstow’s location is ideal because it connects Northern and Southern California to Southern Transcon, the most efficient way to deliver goods into the interior US to places like Chicago, Kansas City, Memphis, Tennessee and Alliance, Texas.

Once the loaded containers reach BIG, they will be processed using zero- and near-zero emission cargo-handling equipment, and then staged and built into trains moving east on BNSF's network.

Big – big capacity

“BIG will consolidate many of the handoffs and transitions that add inefficiencies throughout the supply chain by bringing them into one simplified and integrated ecosystem,” Jon Gabriel, vice president, Service Design & Capacity Planning, explained. “This will play a critical role in improving the consistency of our intermodal product and fluidity across our rail network. By moving containers off the ports quicker while improving the efficiency at our existing intermodal hubs, including those in the Midwest and Texas, we’ll improve, simplify and add flexibility to the BNSF intermodal service experience.”

The impact for customers is going to be big – big capacity, big efficiency and big in terms of a more environmentally sustainable solution, Tom Williams, group vice president, Consumer Products, said. “Because BIG is going to have both a switching yard as well as an intermodal facility, the former will allow for more efficient consolidation of import traffic coming from the ports that doesn't need to be unloaded or transloaded for movement into the interior,” he said. “The latter, the intermodal yard, is going to allow short-haul intermodal containers coming in to be loaded into 53-foot containers to go into the domestic intermodal markets. So, it’s going to serve two independent purposes for supply chains that use intermodal.”

And because customers will have more capacity to use intermodal within their supply chains, that impact is going to be good for the environment.

“BIG is a catalyst for a more sustainable freight system,” John Lovenburg, vice president, Environmental & Sustainability, said. “It’s going to enable our customers to move more of their containers and trailers right on trains to the facility rather than going by truck to transload facilities. The net result: fewer emissions and less congestion, which benefits our customers and the communities where we operate.”

Ultimately, BIG will be a big deal for everyone, even if they don’t yet know it.

“This facility is going to create more capacity for the most efficient way to move cargo from the ocean ports in Southern California to inland destinations,” Williams added. “Ultimately, because BIG will be good for cost effectiveness of the supply chain, it is good for the American consumer.”