Barstow
Barstow: The Next Spearpoint Heavyweight Gateway
BNSF is building the Barstow International Gateway - a 4,500-acre integrated rail facility on the west side of Barstow, approved by the Barstow City Council in June 2026 and targeting a late 2028 opening. Containers will transfer from ships at LA/Long Beach directly to trains via the Alameda Corridor and run up the mainline to Barstow, bypassing LA Basin truck congestion entirely.
Spearpoint's Barstow facility is being built to do there what Alliance does today: give heavyweight import freight a place to land that doesn't require a public road to reach.
A New Model for West Coast Imports
BIG is not another inland ramp. It's a rail yard, an intermodal facility, and transload warehousing on one site, designed to move freight out of international containers and into domestic equipment, closer to the rail network and further from the ports.
-
Direct from ship to train
-
Containers transfer at the ports and move via the Alameda Corridor to the BNSF mainline, skipping the drayage that currently defines West Coast import logistics
-
The first integrated rail and transload complex within 130 miles of the ports
-
Westbound consolidation - freight heading back toward the ports and other California terminals is built at Barstow, which improves equipment cycles in both directions
Why This Changes Heavyweight Economics
Everything expensive about heavyweight import freight happens in the last mile - the short drive from the ramp to a warehouse, on public roads, under state weight law. It's why most shippers load light at origin and pay to ship air across the Pacific.
-
BIG moves the inland processing point 130 miles from the ports and puts transload capacity on the same site as the rail
-
Spearpoint is building alongside it for the same reason we built alongside Alliance: when the warehouse connects to the ramp, the container never has to be street-legal to reach a dock door
The Numbers Behind the Project
-
$4 billion in private investment from BNSF
-
4,500 acres on the west side of Barstow, master planned as a single integrated facility
-
Roughly 205 million truck miles eliminated in 2028, rising to 269 million by 2033 and 312 million by 2048
-
About 62,000 construction jobs and 15,000 long-term operational jobs, spanning direct, indirect, and induced employment in San Bernardino County
-
Certified under California's SB 149 by Governor Newsom - the first transportation project in the state to receive the designation, and one of only ten local or regional transportation projects to earn it
Cleaner Freight
By Design
BNSF has signed agreements with the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board covering zero-emission technology demonstration and further emissions reduction work, and has committed to replacing existing switcher locomotives at Barstow with the cleanest available Tier 4 equipment.
Additionally, they have committed to:
-
Zero-emission rail-mounted gantry cranes
-
Hybrid rubber-tired gantry cranes
-
Zero-emission forklifts and hostlers
-
Electric plug-ins for refrigerated containers