BNSF has cleared the final local hurdle for its $4B Barstow International Gateway. The 4,500-acre inland rail complex is designed to move container processing 130 miles off the Los Angeles and Long Beach docks. The Barstow city council approved the project unanimously. It reshapes how importers move Asia freight through Southern California, though the facility will not handle containers for several years.
How it works: Today, importers move Asia containers in one of two ways. They either dwell international 40-foot containers at LA or Long Beach while waiting for unit trains, or dray the boxes to Inland Empire warehouses and transload the cargo into 53-foot domestic containers for the trip east.
The Barstow gateway moves that entire step inland. BNSF would rail the import containers about 130 miles up the Alameda Corridor to Barstow. Cargo would be transloaded there into 53-foot domestic containers using zero-emission equipment, then assembled into eastbound unit trains on its Southern Transcon mainline. That removes the LA Basin drayage leg and moves the transloading to lower-cost inland land. Roughly four 40-foot international containers consolidated into three 53-foot domestic ones.
By the numbers: BNSF projects the hub will eliminate about 205 million truck miles a year by 2028, rising to 269M by 2033. The company estimates around 62,000 construction jobs and 15,000 long-term operational jobs. The $4 billion is privately funded by BNSF, with no public subsidy announced.
CEO Katie Farmer called it “a transformative, next generation rail facility that will deliver meaningful benefits for our customers,” adding the investment “reduces congestion at the ports.”
The catch: The model depends on a steady flow of empty 53-foot domestic containers heading back west to Barstow. Without a reliable westbound repositioning loop, the added handling could reduce the cost savings the inland transload model is meant to create.
The broader shift: Other Class I railroads are also working to reduce port congestion, but most are expanding existing networks and prioritizing projects with faster returns. Union Pacific expanded its near-port Inland Empire terminal and launched truck-competitive Los Angeles-to-Chicago service, generating revenue immediately.
