BNSF hostler innovations drive efficiency, sustainability, visibility

Hostlers are the vehicles we use to move freight containers around our intermodal facilities, where trucks and trains exchange loads. From trackside cranes to parking spaces and from parking spaces back to the cranes, hostlers help us to get these loads on and off a train or truck and ready to roll.

They’re pretty basic equipment, but we’re investing in hostler innovations to be more efficient and consistent and sustainable while making our operations safer and more competitive.

Here are some examples of those innovations.

Autonomous hostlers allow us to move freight like regular hostlers, but without a person doing the work. This advancement helps get the work done at a more consistent pace, while allowing the people at the facilities to handle what we call exceptions – issues that require more attention.

These are already being used at our Alliance, Texas, facility, where we also support many intermodal customers through co-location and delivering their loads with private hostlers.

Co-location is where customers’ warehouses are on or adjacent to our intermodal facilities, allowing us to reduce the time at the endpoints, whether at origin or destination. Using private hostlers, co-located customers can have their loads delivered directly from rail ramp to dock door, taking additional time, cost and complexity out of shipping via intermodal.

Battery-electric hostlers help us to be more sustainable and more environmentally friendly for the communities we serve. Transitioning hostlers from diesel to battery-electric power significantly lowers local air pollution.

We began implementing battery-electric hostlers at our Stockton, California, intermodal facility and have since added them to other California facilities. We'll continue to expand our use of them to the Pacific Northwest and across our network.

Machine-vision cameras attached to hostlers enable us to do multiple things at once while moving our customers’ freight around the facility.

• They allow us to check the inventory and status of containers in real time, without pulling people away from other work.
  
• We’re able to tell customers where their shipment is, improving visibility while helping them manage an entire network of containers.
  
• Because the cameras look for the container number or the parking space, when truck drivers come to pull a shipment, they know precisely where it is.

These cameras are currently at our Alliance facility, and we’ll deploy them in Southern California, Chicago and other intermodal facilities.

“We believe our hostler innovations will help us grow with our customers and become more resilient and more consistent,” said Jon Gabriel, group vice president of consumer products. "The advances will also enable a safer operation for our people."