FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway and CSX have expanded their intermodal partnership with the launch today (Nov. 17, 2025) of faster interline service linking Los Angeles with the Ohio Valley and points in the Northeast.
The new service from BNSF’s Hobart terminal to CSX destinations improves transit time by anywhere from 22 to 52 hours, BNSF says in a customer advisory. The schedules link L.A. with CSX’s Northwest Ohio terminal; Chambersburg, Pa.; Columbus, Ohio; Louisville, Ky.; Philadelphia; South Kearny, N.J.; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Springfield, Mass.
“These new schedules offer even more immediate value for our customers today by increasing speed, flexibility and optionality while delivering integrated service for freight moving across the U.S.,” BNSF said.
The news was expected: CSX executives said last month that the railroads would extend the interline partnership announced in August to new origins and destinations. The initial round of service links the Southwest and Southeast and has landed business previously handled by Norfolk Southern. [See “BNSF-CSX interline intermodal service off to fast start,” Trains.com, Oct. 10, 2025]. It also has converted over the highway loads to intermodal, particularly in the new Phoenix-Atlanta lane.
NS executives, speaking on the railroad’s earnings call last month, said they expected to lose market share as rival railroads create new services in response to the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger.
BNSF and CSX have said they were working on the interline partnership prior to the July 29 UP-NS merger announcement.
Intermodal analyst Larry Gross says the proposed UP-NS merger has already reversed a long-term interline intermodal trend.
“Over the past 20 years, the percentage of intermodal moves involving interchange has dropped significantly,” Gros says. “A major contributor has been strict attention to operating costs, which has tended to preclude any pre-blocking of trains for steel wheel interchange because there is no easily traced revenue offset.”
The decline in interline service raised costs for customers who stuck with intermodal and shifted to crosstown rubber-tire moves in Chicago.
“But likely a good chunk of this volume went back to the highway, contributing to the decline in share we have seen,” Gross says. “The situation seems similar to the action following the CPKC merger, which saw a flurry of new services. They took a while to take hold but recently, cross-border volume has been up by double digits.”
— Note: Updated at 1.57 p.m. Central with comment from Larry Gross. To report news or errors, contact trainsnewswire@firecrown.com.
Some of the times seem too long. For example, why should it take 32 hours to get from north New Jersey to Philadelphia (unless cutting through Pittsburgh to Maryland and back north isn’t an easy route)? Why should it take four hours longer to get to Syracuse than to Springfield, MA (unless the Springfield is Missouri or Illinois)?