Last Updated on November 9, 2022 by The HD Post Staff

BARSTOW – BNSF Railway is planning a $1.5 billion new rail facility, in Barstow, that aims to relieve congestion around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The facility will create 20,000 direct and indirect jobs for Barstow and other High Desert communities. 

The Barstow International Gateway will be an approximately 4,500-acre new rail facility on the west side of Barstow, consisting of a rail yard, intermodal facility and warehouses for transloading freight from international containers to domestic containers. 

“This facility will bring thousands of jobs to Barstow, while increasing equity, opportunity and the economic competitiveness of the High Desert,” said Barstow City Manager Willie A. Hopkins, Jr. 

Currently, most international cargo at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach arrives in 40-foot containers that are then trucked from the ports to warehouses in Los Angeles or the Inland Empire. Once the containers arrive at the warehouses, they are unloaded, sorted, and re-loaded onto 53-foot domestic containers that are either transported by truck to a railyard in Los Angeles, where they are transferred onto trains, or trucked across the country. 

The Barstow International Gateway will allow cargo to be transported by rail directly from the ports through the Alameda Corridor to Barstow and processed efficiently between the intermodal rail facility and the on-site transload warehouse facilities, without generating additional on-road truck trips. The transload warehouses will expedite repackaging and processing of goods into domestic containers for further transport via rail across the country.

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“By allowing for more efficient transfer of cargo directly between ships and rail, the Barstow International Gateway will maximize rail and distribution efficiency regionally and across the U.S. supply chain and reduce truck traffic and freeway congestion in the Los Angeles Basin and the Inland Empire,” said BNSF President and CEO Katie Farmer. 

The project is going to be privately funded.

Farmer says BNSF is looking to open the Barstow International Gateway as soon as possible.

For more information about the Barstow International Gateway visit https://bnsfcalifornia.com/barstow-international-gateway-project/