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Victorville council approves letter backing BNSF's Barstow International Gateway after presentation
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Summary
Following a presentation by BNSF, the Victorville City Council voted unanimously to send a letter of support for the Barstow International Gateway draft EIR, a proposed ~5,000-acre intermodal project that BNSF said would shift freight from road to rail and includes a public comment period ending Jan. 5.
Lena Kent, director of public affairs for BNSF Railway, presented the Barstow International Gateway draft environmental impact report to the Victorville City Council on Dec. 16 and asked the council to weigh in with a letter of support. Kent described the proposal as a roughly $4,000,000,000 intermodal and transload complex sited on about 5,000 acres near Barstow and said it is intended to move more freight by rail rather than highway.
"We will then transload the goods ... into that 53-foot container and then transport it across The United States," Kent said, describing an on-site process that she said keeps cargo within a closed-loop rail-warehouse system. She told the council the draft EIR was released Nov. 10 and that the public comment period closes Jan. 5. Kent also said the project would include a 130-acre solar farm and that BNSF expects about 62,000 direct and indirect jobs over 20 years, with roughly 15,000 operational jobs on-site once facilities are occupied.
Councilmembers asked technical questions about container handling, on-site job counts and rail capacity. Councilmember Irving asked whether containers would be stacked or suspended; Kent said containers would be lifted by crane, moved to on-site warehouses by electric hostlers, processed there and returned to rail for onward shipment rather than being stacked in long-term storage. Kent said the property chosen sits adjacent to an active main line and that initial operations would add a small number of trains on that corridor in the opening year, with modest increases by 2048.
After the presentation and brief Q&A, Mayor Becerra moved that the city prepare and send a letter of support for the Barstow International Gateway draft EIR; Councilmember Irving seconded the motion. The council voted unanimously in favor of the letter, with Mayor Pro Tem Herriman absent.
The draft EIR is before the City of Barstow as lead agency; BNSF encouraged interested parties to review the document and submit comments by Jan. 5, 2026. Victorville's vote authorizes staff to transmit the council's supportive letter to the project proponents and to Barstow as appropriate.
