The pundits can produce all the pronouncements they want on why this influence or that lead to the demise of BS yard. What happened was the cumulation of the post-war decline in RR business. The simple fact is that shippers nationwide kept abandoning RR use in favor of trucks. By the late 1970s, the tipping point in carload freight revenue vs cost and usage had been reached. The bean counters saw all the money generated by piggybacks and containers, so they went for that. The problem is, the revenue didn't turn out to be as high as hoped.

Being stuck out on the end of a peninsula, requiring the maintenance of some 45 miles of main line just to get to BS and MB yards didn't help. As for the WP and Santa Fe carfloats, those were even more expensive to operate.