BNSF set to roll out new Pacific Northwest-Texas intermodal service

Fort Worth, Texas-based Class I railroad BNSF recently announced that it will roll out a new intermodal service running between the Pacific Northwest and Texas that will take effect on Monday, September 12.

This service will be geared towards shippers moving commodities and consumer goods between Portland, Oregon or Seattle, and Dallas/Fort Worth to be able to reduce their transit times by up to two days compared to current rail transit times, with BNSF saying that the service is in line speed-wise with single-driver, over-the-road options.

BNSF said that this new offering will be the first of several new intermodal routes that will come online over the next year, with the one announced last week coming in time for the Pacific Northwest’s fall fruit harvest. And it added that the Pacific Northwest-Texas service will aid local businesses in more efficiently moving products to market, with faster and more direct routing enabling agriculture producers to move “produce to southern markets at the peak of freshness.”

“We regularly work with our customers to identify and offer new and better transportation solutions to make their supply chains more effective,” said Katie Farmer, BNSF group vice president, Consumer Products. “So we are constantly looking for opportunities to help meet consumer demands and this new service checks all the right boxes for adding efficiency to the marketplace,” said Katie Farmer, group vice president, Consumer Products, in a statement. “With an economy as dynamic as ours, BNSF is focused on delivering options that strengthen the competitive advantage of U.S. companies through our country’s supply chain.”

BNSF said that this new service offering leverages underutilized capacity in the central section of its network, with the company offering expedited service for customers who wish to have their shipments arrive in Dallas/Fort Worth on the morning of the fifth transit day. And from its intermodal facility north of Fort Worth, it said customers can reach any of the major Texas or Oklahoma markets with a short-haul trucking option to move containers and trailers for dry or refrigerated goods. What’s more, it said that northbound service will also be faster operating with both expedited service arriving on the sixth morning and standard service reaching its destination on the sixth day.

As for what type of service was previously used for this route prior to next week’s rollout, BNSF spokeswoman Jessa Lewis said that while BNSF moves a wide range of commodities to and from the Pacific Northwest, portions of the route have historically been used to move coal. And as the coal industry is undergoing structural change and as BNSF’s customers experience the benefit of the company’s capital investment along its northern lines, she said BNSF is able to leverage this route on its network to move container and trailer traffic two days faster than in the past.

“Time savings is the biggest benefit for our customers,” she said. “Customers opting for southbound Expedited Service can expect their shipments the fifth morning after departure, meaning Washington apples arrive in Texas fresher, as do frozen fish and other products in temperature-controlled units. Our network is performing extremely well and our intermodal speeds remain the best in the industry.”