Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway launched a new express carload service Oct. 1 to ship food and building supplies to key inland markets while increasing access to Texas.

The new service, with quicker speeds than traditional railroad, will enable goods traveling from the Pacific Northwest to reach Denver and Salt Lake City faster. The express service route will operate three days a week — Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays — and will cut the previous transit time of three days in half.

“This new express service option from Spokane to Denver and Salt Lake City builds upon our wide array of reliable service offerings and broad network reach already available to our customers,” Colby Tanner, BNSF group vice president of industrial products, said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to help our customers grow their business by providing more options in accessing some of the country’s biggest and fastest growing inland markets.”

BNSF said the new service will enable customers to ship high-consumption products to key inland markets, including food and drinks, lumber and other building materials. BNSF uses the Sandpoint Junction Connector rail bridge, completed in 2022, that permits two-way traffic on the bridge as it crosses Lake Pend Oreille. 

The service will complement BNSF’s existing service from the Pacific Northwest to Texas that started in 2017 and provides access to the state’s largest cities, including Fort Worth. 

Earlier in 2024, BNSF launched a new intermodal service with GMXT, Mexico’s largest rail provider, and J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., which owns the largest intermodal fleet in North America, for service from Eagle Pass to key markets in northern and central Mexico, including the Monterrey and Mexico City regions. That route, BNSF said, will result in a one-day faster service to transport goods to and from Mexico to destinations across the U.S. 

The new services come as BNSF is in the midst of a multiyear project to add double track segments from Fort Worth to the Central Texas city of Temple. That effort includes adding a new bridge for freight and passenger rail across the Trinity River near downtown Fort Worth that opened in 2023.

BNSF’s service portfolio includes 32,500 miles of track in 28 states and three Canadian provinces.

Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org. 

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