BOCA RATON, Fla. — Craig Rasmussen, BNSF Railway assistant vice president, engineering services and structures, had plenty of big projects to review during his presentation today (Friday, Jan. 6) at the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association Conference.
But they all pale in comparison to the BIG project still to come — the Barstow International Gateway intermodal facility the railroad announced last October.
Trains News Wire has given significant coverage to the Barstow project [see “BNSF to build $1.5 billion facility …,” News Wire, Oct. 1, 2022, and “BNSF Railway is banking that its BIG intermodal bet will pay off: Analysis,” News Wire, Dec. 10, 2022].
Rasmussen offered three facts that drove home the size of the planned facility: It will be twice as large as any other facility on the BNSF system; it will require moving 30 million cubic yards of earthwork; and at full buildout, it will include about 200 miles of track.
What he couldn’t tell the conference’s crowd of contractors, eager to pursue their share of a projected $1.5 billion project, is when construction will start.
“We’ve got a journey ahead of us from a permitting standpoint,” he said. “… There’s a federal process and a state process, and all the boxes we have to check from an air-quality standpoint, traffic, and whatnot. The view of who’s going to be the final approval, I can’t tell you what that looks like. But we’ve got a team of folks making sure we get to what that final approval is.”
Rasmussen was asked how that approval process compares to the one that led BNSF to abandon plans for a yard near the Port of Los Angeles following a 2016 court ruling.
“It’s oscillated back and forth,” he said. “There were some changes where it got a little bit less restrictive at the federal level; now it looks like it might migrate back the other way. That is probably one of the biggest hurdles we have to get over with a capital investment, is what does it look like from the permitting side?”
One thing is certain: the home city for the project, looking at a project estimated to directly or indirectly generate 20,000 jobs, is not going interested in creating hurdles.
“I will tell you the community of Barstow is very excited,” Rasmussen said. “They want this project. Our customers want this project. They’re all anxious to get it going.”But, he said, “execution is still a couple of years away.”
Other significant projects
With the railroad not yet ready to offer its 2023 capital plan, Rasmussen reviewed three significant projects that saw major progress in 2022 and will continue into 2023.
The first of those involves 50.7 miles of new track on the Emporia Subdivision between Elliinor and Mulvane, Kan. It is part of the continuing effort to complete double-tracking of the Chicago-Los Angeles main line, save for a river crossing near Kansas City [see “Double tracking the Transcon,” Trains Magazine, February 2022]. Two segments opened in 2022; two more, of 5.7 and 8.9 miles, are slated to be completed in 2023, with a 14-mile segment in 2023-24.
Another is the triple-tracking of a 30.2-mile stretch the Needles Subdivision between Needles and Goffs, Calif., to provide operational flexibility dealing with the grade westbound from Needles. Grading began in 2022.
“The original plan we had in 2022 was not to turn on any of that capacity,” Rasmussen said. “And we actually turned on the first 10 miles of that project the day before Thanksgiving, and that is a true testament to how working with contract partners and our in-sourced work … we were able to turn on the first 10 miles of that early.”
The railroad also completed its second bridge across Lake Pend Oreille in Sandpoint, Idaho — actually a series of three bridges, one of which is about a mile long. The new route opened Nov. 20, nearly a year ahead of schedule [see “BNSF opens new bridge …,” News Wire, Nov. 22, 2022], allowing an earlier start on modernization of the original bridge, which dates to 1904. “Again, a true success,” Rasmussen said.
California should want to make this happen since the 710 freeway expansion was cancelled, left hand, meet right hand…
The permitting process for double track up ABo Canyoin east of Belen took longer than construction. A lady lawyer NIMBY nearby plus the Sierra Club held it up. Facilitating imports from China would increase evil consumerism and harm the planet. One claim was that since the original construction had never been rebuilt it was a historical artifact of 1907 railroading!
Environmental reviews and permits aren’t in and of themselves the problem. The problem is when they drag out forever and ever and ever and ever with appeals and hearings and endless court cases.
In my career I both applied for permits and issued permits, depending on the activity. In both cases, there was one shot at it. Do the paperwork once, within the stated deadline, and get it right the first and only time.
Frankly, is anyone surprised?
Was the pun in the article title intended?
200 miles of track ? Will bnsf be able to use rail that is replaced on other parts of the system ?