BNSF, PORT OF OAKLAND TO OPEN JOINT INTERMODAL TERMINAL

BNSF, PORT OF OAKLAND TO OPEN JOINT INTERMODAL TERMINAL    The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. and the Port of Oakland have reached an agreement for the railroad to operate the port’s newly built joint intermodal terminal.
   The terminal, called the Oakland International Gateway, will open in mid-March, and includes 85-acre, near-dock capacity for 250,000 containers per year. It will also includes 13,300 feet of tracks to accommodate 410 FEUs at a time. In addition, the terminal has 10,100 feet of storage and support tracks and parking for 1,245 containers.
   The cost of the terminal is $38 million, with $22.1 million from federal grants through ISTEA and TEA-21 funding.
   The Oakland International Gateway will cover BNSF’s trackage rights approved by the Surface Transportation Board as part of the 1995 Union Pacific/Southern Pacific Merger Settlement Agreement.
“This facility will provide the shipping community additional capacity on the West Coast and give BNSF’s customers a direct link to our network — as opposed to a 12 mile truck dray over the highways to our intermodal facility in Richmond,” said Steve Branscum, group vice president of BNSF’s consumer products marketing.
   The port estimates that the Oakland International Gateway will take about 20,000 trucks off Interstate 80 each year.