Yards and Facilities
BNSF operates various facilities all over the United States to support its transportation system. Facilities operated by the railway include yards and terminals throughout its rail network, system locomotive shops to perform locomotive service and maintenance, a centralized operations center for train dispatching and network operations monitoring in Fort Worth, and regional dispatching centers.
BNSF Railway also operates numerous transfer facilities throughout the western United States to facilitate the transfer of intermodal containers, trailers, and other freight traffic. BNSF Railway has direct control over a total of 33 intermodal hubs and 23 automotive distribution facilities. On February 9, 2005, BNSF announced that it plans to build a new intermodal transfer facility near the port of Los Angeles called the Southern California International Gateway. The new facility, with direct rail access to the recently constructed Alameda Corridor, would supplement the container transloading abilities of the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF) built by Southern Pacific in the 1990s.
Large freight car hump yards are also scattered throughout the BNSF system. In 2005, Argentine Yard in Kansas City, Kansas processed the most freight cars. Further on, there is a list of currently operating BNSF Hump Yards.
The BNSF mechanical division operates eight locomotive maintenance facilities that perform preventive maintenance, repairs and servicing of equipment. The largest of these facilities are located in Alliance, Nebraska and Topeka, Kansas. The mechanical division also controls 46 additional facilities responsible for car maintenance and daily running repairs.
The BNSF system mechanical division, a subset of the mechanical division, operates two maintenance-of-way work equipment shops, responsible for performing repairs and preventive maintenance to BNSF's track and equipment, in Brainerd, Minnesota and Galesburg, Illinois. The system mechanical division also operates the Western Fruit Express Company's refrigerated car repair shop in Spokane, Washington.
In 2006, BNSF teamed with Vancouver, WA-based Tri Star to run BNSF's new transload facility in Fontana, CA, near the California Speedway.
BNSF operates hump yards in several cities:
- Barstow, California - Barstow Yard
- Galesburg, Illinois - Galesburg Yard
- Kansas City, Kansas - Argentine Yard
- Memphis, Tennessee - Tennessee Yard
- Minneapolis, Minnesota - Northtown Yard
- Pasco, Washington - Pasco Yard
- Seattle, Washington - Balmer Yard
- Tulsa, Oklahoma - Cherokee Yard
- Lincoln, Nebraska - Hobson Yard
Read more about this topic: BNSF Railway, Operations
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