Northwest Seaport Alliance press release.
At their July 6 Managing Member meeting, Commissioners voted to approve a 16-acre lease to BNSF Railway Company (BNSF). The lease will allow BNSF to develop and operate a domestic intermodal facility at Lot M in the Tacoma Harbor.
The new BNSF facility will increase cargo volumes moving to and from the NWSA and inland U.S. markets via rail. The adoption of this lease uniquely positions the NWSA as a port directly served by two mainline railroads in the domestic movement of containers.
“Growing the NWSA’s domestic intermodal volumes has long been a goal for the Seattle and Tacoma gateway,” stated NWSA Co-Chair and Port of Tacoma Commissioner President Don Meyer. “The new facility will increase job opportunities while reducing truck emissions associated with moving cargo to inland markets.”
BNSF currently operates a domestic intermodal facility in Tukwila serving the NWSA’s Seattle Harbor. The new Tacoma intermodal facility will bring additional key rail assets to the Pacific Northwest region with the potential for more than 50,000 container lifts in subsequent years.
“The new Tacoma South facility builds upon our joint initiative with J.B. Hunt to substantially improve capacity in the intermodal marketplace while also meeting the expanding needs of our customers,” said Tom Williams, BNSF group vice president, Consumer Products. “Our collaboration with the NWSA will help support greater warehousing and distribution needs in the fast-growing greater Seattle area.”
Currently, cargo movement occurs by truck to more than 40 transload facilities in the Puget Sound or directly by rail to inland locations. The increase in domestic rail movement will add additional jobs to NWSA-licensed facilities while reducing fuel consumption and air emissions that are caused by trucks throughout the Puget Sound region.
Operations at the new facility are expected to begin in August of this year.
This sounds fascinating. When will the facility be open? Will there be an open house kind of event? Are there maps available to show the scope of the work vs. the current capacity?
I’m interested. Are there public tours of the port again?
Thanks for the news.
What, trains don’t pollute the air? I have updated my truck twice in recent years (at my own expense) to meet the port’s ever-stricter emission standards. Meanwhile, I see locomotives spewing copious amounts of black smoke into the air. Furthermore, those rail containers and trailers need to get between the customers and railyards somehow. It would be virtually impossible to run rail lines to every facility that ships by rail. Thus, they move between the two by truck. So you can’t take the trucks completely out of the equation, even if you wanted to.
These news stories always make the trucks and their drivers out to be the bad guys. Trucking is a vital and noble profession. Without trucks, the economy would come to a standstill. The same can’t be said of the railroad. Remember, “if you bought it, a truck brought it”.