BNSF begins to build transload center in southern California (5/13/2005)

Yesterday, BNSF Railway Co. broke ground for BNSF Logistics Center-Fontana, a 38-acre transload facility to be located at the Kaiser Commerce Center west of San Bernardino, Calif.

To be completed by year end, the facility is designed to provide transload services for dimensional commodities, such as lumber and steel, and commodities that require warehousing, such as consumer and bulk goods. Located near other existing rail-served facilities and on a dedicated spur with direct access to a BNSF mainline, Logistics Center-Fontana will enable BNSF to improve its carload gathering and distribution process, and provide more consistent service.

"With one large facility that handles multiple commodities, BNSF is able to … build trains at one transload facility instead of gathering rail cars at several smaller ones," said BNSF Vice President of Business Development Fritz Draper in a prepared statement.

Global distributor ProLogis has begun building an 849,000-square-foot rail-served warehouse adjacent to the center. BNSF plans to build logistics centers near existing intermodal facilities in rapidly growing markets to combine warehousing, storage, carload and transloading services in one location.

Source: Progressive Railroading Daily News