Kansas City Southern to serve U.S. Southeast via Mexican West Coast
In a move which could threaten the dominance of Californian ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach, Kansas City Southern will start a daily intermodal service from the Port of Lazaro Cardenas on Mexico’s West Coast to the U.S. Southeast in the next few weeks.
KCS’s service, through subsidiaries Kansas City Southern Railway Co. and Kansas City Southern de Mexico, will travel from Lazaro Cardenas, San Luis Potosi and Monterrey in Mexico to the Southeastern U.S. markets via Jackson, Miss., with connecting service to Atlanta.
“Dedicated, premium intermodal service is part of KCS’s strategy to develop an International Intermodal Corridor, connecting Lazaro Cardenas to the Southeast and Central U.S. with consistent, long-haul rail moves and strategically located intermodal terminals,” said KCS in a statement.
“With its ongoing capital investments to improve capacity in these corridors and dedicated, premium intermodal service, KCS anticipates that the intermodal segment of its overall business will continue to grow,” KCS said.
KCS is targeting ocean carriers moving containers from Asia to Lazaro Cardenas, and trailer-load goods originating from Schneider National and their customers out of San Luis Potosi and Monterrey.
“We do more cross-border business than any other carrier in the industry. Our customers are very excited about bringing this service to the marketplace and see the creative, new options it opens up to them as shippers,” said Scott Arves, president of Schneider National.
“We are confident that this new service will provide shippers with better service, better alternatives, and grow with time,” said Art Shoener, KCS’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.
KCS said it plans to expand the service to Houston and Kansas City, as well as to develop a primary intermodal terminal at the Port of Lazaro Cardenas.
“This location is ideally situated to provide Asian trading partners with a competitive alternative to more congested West Coast ports. The Port of Lazaro Cardenas boasts many natural amenities, and is benefiting from significant infrastructure improvements from the world’s largest developer and operator of deepwater ports, Hutchison Port Holdings.” KCS said.
At the end of March, Hutchison started work on a three-phase expansion of the Specialized Container Terminal at Lazaro Cardenas. “We’re pleased with the announcement of the new dedicated train service, connecting our customers from Lazaro Cardenas to Mexican population centers and the Southeastern United States,” said Gonzalo Ortiz, general manager of Hutchison in Lazaro Cardenas.
“The service is just in time to assist customers with peak season and is a clear indicator of the growth of traffic and capacity planned for this port,” Ortiz added.
Hutchison also operates Mexican container terminals in Ensenada and Manzanillo on the West Coast, as well as a terminal at Veracruz on the Mexican Gulf Coast. It has so far refrained from investing in U.S. container terminals, saying American port authorities prefer a model of terminals leased to tenants rather than terminals owned and operated by independent companies.
