The $100 million Patrick J. Ottensmeyer International Railway Bridge is officially complete.
The second span across the Rio Grande — linking Laredo, Texas, with Nuevo Laredo, Mexico — doubles Canadian Pacific Kansas City’s cross-border capacity because it allows the railway to eliminate the four-hour northbound and southbound directional running windows that created bottlenecks on its original lone single-track bridge.
“Completion of this internationally important project more than doubles our capacity to move freight through the border at the largest international trade port of entry in North America,” CPKC CEO Keith Creel said in a statement Wednesday. “This is an important milestone that keeps Laredo-Nuevo Laredo at the center of North American trade, allowing the secure and efficient movement of more imports and exports across the U.S.-Mexico border.”
The single-track, 1,170-foot span was built 35 feet downstream from the existing bridge that was opened in 1920.
“By linking expanding markets for our customers, this CPKC investment will accelerate growth between the industrial heartland of Mexico and points across the United States and Canada,” Creel said.
Kansas City Southern received presidential permits for the project in 2020 and broke ground in late 2022. The bridges are now named in honor of Ottensmeyer, the last president and CEO of KCS, who died in July.
“Pat’s leadership and vision were instrumental in the development and successful completion of this project,” Creel said. “His legacy lives on in the work we do at CPKC each and every day, enabling growing international trade across three great nations — Canada, the United States, and Mexico.”
The ballasted deck-plate girder bridge includes six reinforced concrete piers. The bridge project involved the construction of 4,500 feet of new track as well as border security investments that include surveillance cameras and a new VACIS X-ray system for inspecting trains as they roll across the border.