Pasha, based in Corte Madera near San Francisco, also plans to operate warehouses and other facilities that will provide room for auto manufacturers to store cars and parts, providing an alternative to storing them at the crowded ports.

One of the developers of Southern California Logistics Airport, partner Dougall Agan of Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Stirling Airports International, tells GlobeSt.com that the Pasha project will help the ports to operate more efficiently by clearing port land that is now covered with acres of cargo containers waiting to be loaded onto trains for the Midwest and other destinations.

"About 40% of the real estate at the ports is used for storing containers," Agan says. The ports would rather have that land to build more railroad sidings and staging areas so that they can assemble trainloads of cargo containers faster, he says, and the Pasha project would clear the land by moving many of the cargo containers to Southern California Logistics Airport by rail. Once at the airport, the containers will be stored for later shipment by rail or truck.