The Logistics Park Kansas City has five cranes now operating at the Intermodal site. Each crane sits 90 feet up in the air and each operator must climb 112 steps. Photo courtesy of Debbie Hickman
Members of the public were introduced to the new Logistics Park Kansas City (LPKC) Intermodal Facility during a grand opening ceremony Oct. 17.
During the ceremony, Chuck Burriss, general director hub and facility operations for BNSF, said the intermodal is currently in phase 2, and 65 percent of the volume has been transferred from Argentine to the Edgerton facility. Beginning Nov. 1, the remaining intermodal traffic will be routed to LPKC.
LPKC is a more than 1,550-acre master-planned distribution and warehouse development anchored by BNSF’s newest intermodal facility.
BNSF’s LPKC Intermodal Facility has been designed to accommodate the growing demands of freight rail transportation in the Kansas City region and will initially nearly double BNSF’s lift capacity in the Kansas City market. The Intermodal facility encompasses 433 acres and will have an initial lift capacity of 500,000 truck containers and trailers with the ability to expand to 1.5 million units.
“The intermodal facility is a tremendous asset for businesses in this region,” Kansas Commerce Secretary Pat George said. “This facility will not only create thousands of good jobs directly, it will help give Kansas businesses a competitive advantage in shipping their products to market quickly.
“We are uniquely situated in Kansas to serve as an important crossroads for goods traveling across the country by highway and rail,” said Kansas Transportation Secretary Mike King.” “When an economic opportunity like the intermodal facility emerges, and it can be seized by providing the appropriate infrastructure, I want our state’s transportation agencies to be in a position to capitalize on that opportunity. For a state investment of $22 million in construction costs for the recently opened I-35 Interchange near the BNSF facility, there will be a significant economic impact.”
The LPKC facility has six 8,000-foot tracks for loading and unloading Intermodal trains, more than 1,800 parking spaces and will have 4,300 container stacking spots at full build-out. It is equipped with five wide-span, electric, rail-mounted gantry cranes, which produce zero emissions on site and will significantly reduce the number of hostler trucks needed to move containers within the facility.
LPKC also features an automated gate system for trucks as they enter and exit the intermodal facility, a biometric driver identification system and digital cameras to record images of containers, chassis and tractors. These elements will increase security, while improving throughput and reducing truck idling and emissions.
The business park has 500,000 square feet of speculative distribution building space available for warehouse and distribution centers. Visit www.logisticsparkkc.com for more information about the LPKC Intermodal Facility and the LPKC business park. More information about BNSF is available at www.BNSF.com.
