Kansas City Southern de México, S.A. de C.V. is a Mexican railroad and operating subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (CPKC). The company was founded in 1996 as Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana , a joint venture between KCS and Transportación Maritima Mexicana after the companies won a concession from the Mexican government to operate the Northeast Railroad connecting

Monterrey Monterrey (, , abbreviated as MtY) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. It is the ninth-largest city and the second largest metropolitan area, after Greater Mexico City. Located at the foothills of th ...

and

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

with a US port of entry at

Laredo, Texas Laredo ( ; ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Webb County, Texas, Webb County, on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Founded in 1755, Laredo grew from a villag ...

and seaports at

Lázaro Cárdenas Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Previously, he served as a general in the Constitutional Army during the Mexican Revo ...

and

Veracruz Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entit ...

. In 2005, KCS bought out its partner's shares in the railroad, giving it full control.

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...

purchased KCSM in December 2021 for . On April 14, 2023, KCS and KCSM became subsidiaries of CPR, and began conducting business under the name of their new parent, CPKC.

History

Kansas City Southern de México was originally formed in 1996 when Kansas City Southern Industries and Transportación Maritima Mexicana (TMM) purchased a government concession to operate on a rail system in Mexico. It was the Mexican President,

Ernesto Zedillo Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician. He was the 61st president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Re ...

, who proposed the

privatization Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

of the Mexican railways because the Mexican railway system had fallen into a state of disrepair and needed drastic work to become profitable. Since the late 1930s, Mexican trains and tracks were the property of the government as Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (Mexican National Railways). When the decision to privatize the railroad was made, only 15% of freight was moved by rail in Mexico (versus 42% in the US). The most sought-after portion of the concessions, called the Northeast Railroad, was bid on by many major companies, including the United States' largest railroad company,

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

. This concession included about of track with connections to many key cities, including

, and

. This track carried 46% of all rail traffic in Mexico and 60% of all freight coming from the United States. KCSM and TMM bid and won the concession for US$1.4 billion for the rights to operate the concession, paying 49% and 51% respectively. In 2005, Kansas City Southern Industries purchased Transportación Maritima Mexicana's share in TFM, giving them full ownership of the company, and the TFM was officially renamed Kansas City Southern de México. Eleven of 14 of Mexico's auto assembly plants, plus two more under construction, are located on the railroad. Automobile traffic (autos and parts) accounted for 9% of the 2012 total carloads.

Key connections

Guadalajara Guadalajara ( ; ) is the capital and the most populous city in the western Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco, as well as the most densely populated municipality in Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population ...

– United States port of entry *

– Pacific Ocean port * México City – served by Ferrovalle, a terminal railroad co-owned by KCSM *

* Queretaro *

Saltillo Saltillo () is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila and is also the municipal seat of the municipality of the same name. Mexico City, Monterrey, and Saltillo are all connected by a major railroad and high ...

San Luis Potosí San Luis Potosí, officially the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosí, is one of the 32 states which compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 59 municipalities and is named after its capital city, San Luis Potosí. It ...

Tampico Tampico is a city and port in the southeastern part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It is located on the north bank of the Pánuco River, about inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and directly north of the state of Veracruz. Tampico is the fif ...

– Atlantic Ocean port

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kansas City Southern De Mexico Railway companies of Mexico Kansas City Southern Railway Privatized companies in Mexico Standard-gauge railways in Mexico 1997 establishments in Mexico

History

Key connections

See also

References

Further reading

External links