Thread: US-Mexico International Railway Nears Completion

US-Mexico International Railway Nears Completion

Posted by: Narayan Ammachchi in Americas Economics
3 hours ago


US Ambassador Anthony Wayne posing for a photo beside the US-Mexico railroad.

By Narayan Ammachchi

The West Rail Bypass Bridge that connects the Mexican city of Matamoros with Brownsville, Texas, will be opened to traffic in the next couple of months, according to Mexico’s transport and communications ministry.

Billed as the first international railroad linking Mexico with the United States, the rail crossing is aimed at easing the movement of people and cargo between the North American countries.

Moreover, the bridge should move rail traffic currently flowing through the downtown area of the two cities to the outskirts of the metropolitan area, relieving congestion, preventing accidents and reducing noise and air pollution.

“With more than one billion dollars in goods and services crossing the U.S.-Mexico border every day, rail crossings like this one are critical to economic growth and opportunity on both sides of our border,” said U.S. Ambassador Anthony Wayne.

Mexico and the United States have invested US$74.8 million and $100 million respectively in the project, which also includes the construction of railway yards and terminal buildings as well as an overpass for cars.

Experts say the railroad will create jobs and stimulate the manufacturing industry on both sides of the border, reducing the number of Mexican job seekers crossing into the United States.

In January last year, officials from both the countries also discussed a plan to build a high-speed railway between San Antonio, Texas, and Monterrey, Mexico. But there have been no reports about the progress of this plan.

In the meantime, Mexico intends to construct a high-speed railway linking Mexico City with Querétaro as part of its plan to develop an industrial corridor.

http://www.nearshoreamericas.com/usm...rs-completion/

US$700mn stretch of Mexico City-Toluca railway awarded

By Business News Americas staff reporter - Friday, December 12, 2014



A consortium led by Caabsa Constructora won a contract to build the third stretch of the Mexico City-Toluca railroad with a bid of 10.4bn pesos (US$704mn).

Ten parties had bid for the work, which involves building an elevated train line. The project is due to break ground this month and is scheduled to be completed by end-2017.

Caabsa's partners in the consortium are Prefabricados y Transportes, Cargo Crane, Grupo Corporativo Amodher, Omega Construcciones Industriales and González Soto y Asociados.

The winning bid was the third lowest. A consortium led by Isolux de México put in an offer of 9.40bn pesos and Sacyr Construcción México one for 10.3bn pesos, according to information published on the federal government's procurement portal, CompraNet.

Other companies that participated in the project – as part of consortiums – included Grupo Promotor de Desarrollo e Infraestructura, Peninsular Compañía Constructora, Operadora CICSA and Tradeco Infraestructura.

In November, a consortium led by Spanish firm CAF won a 13.6bn-peso contract for the provision of trains, rail and communication infrastructure, ticketing facilities and associated services.

Other contracts already awarded are for a 10.1bn-peso civil works project and for a 2.86bn-peso tunnel project.

http://www.bnamericas.com/news/infra...ilway-awarded1

BNSF taps growing U.S.-Mexico intermodal volume with new service

Mark Szakonyi, Associate Managing Editor | Sep 25, 2014 12:10AM EDT

MEXICO CITY — BNSF Railway is bullish about intermodal Mexico-U.S. cross border growth.

The U.S.-based railroad only handles a small amount of intermodal freight that moves between the North American Free Trade Agreement partners, but a new service is aimed at changing that. BNSF launched its first all-rail U.S.-Mexico service in May by partnering with Mexican railroad Ferromex.

The five-days a week service with sixth day morning delivery runs from Chicago on BNSF’s line to its rail yard in El Paso, Texas. Via a steel wheel interchange, or direct rail to rail handoff of intermodal units without a truck move in the middle, cargo is moved to Ferromex’s line running to the inland port of Guanajuato in Silao. The Guanajuato terminal is within 100 highway miles of major Bajio manufacturing hubs at Aguascalientes, Celaya, Leon, Irapuato, Salamanca and Queretaro.

“The commodities (hauled on the service) are a lot of the auto industry inputs going south and manufactured products going north,” Dean Wise, vice president of network strategy at BNSF Railway, said Wednesday at the annual North American Strategy for Competitiveness conference in Mexico City.

In a short interview with JOC.com, Wise joked “it was about time” BNSF got its first all-rail U.S-Mexico service, considering the rapid cross-border rail volume growth. BNSF total rail volume, namely carload traffic, has more than doubled since the signing NAFTA 20 years ago, he said.

The value of U.S-Mexico trade has been steadily growing, driven by increased auto and white goods manufacturing in Mexico, along with demand for U.S. agriculture products and steel. U.S. rail imports from Mexico were up 6.6 percent by value to $21.1 billion in the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2013, according to U.S. Department of Transportation. Within the same period, U.S. rail exports to Mexico were up 6.9 percent to $14.4 billion. Total U.S.-Mexico rail trade by value rose 6.7 percent year-over-year in the first half of this year to $35.5 billion.

BNSF handles a small amount of U.S-Mexico cross-border intermodal freight via its El Paso facility, where units are hauled over the border to Juarez, a major center for maquiladoras, or Mexican manufacturers focused on U.S. exports, Wise said. A small amount of intermodal volume is also trucked from BNSF’s Houston terminal to the Kansas City Southern Railway’s Rosenberg terminal. From the KCS facility, shippers can access the only U.S-Mexico cross-border rail network and main driver of intermodal trade. But Wise stressed the Chicago-Baijo service is the railroad’s first true foray into the U.S.-Mexico intermodal market.

While he said BNSF is always considering the possibility of adding new intermodal services, the railroad in the short-term was focused on building volume on the new cross-border service. The intermodal service, along with KCS’s cross-border services, benefits from being able to move goods through border customs checks much faster than via trucking, where drivers can wait hours before having their cargo cleared. BNSF provides cargo manifests to Ferromex and Mexican and U.S. customs in advance, allowing for a faster interchange of freight.

Union Pacific Railroad has also worked to tap growing U.S.-Mexico intermodal volume. Via a partnership with Ferromex, UP late last year launched an intermodal service between Chicago and Monterrey, Mexico. UP’s new $400 million intermodal terminal in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, also enables the railroad to attract freight hauled by truck across the nearby U.S.-Mexico border. KCS, which handles the most cross-border intermodal volume of the North American railroads, saw U.S.-Mexico traffic rise 21 percent year-over-year in the second quarter to 26,500 units.

Wise said he was optimistic about total rail freight volume growth among NAFTA partners, as the trading block has the largest interconnected rail network in the world. Part of that’s possible because three countries use the same rail gauge, meaning the same locomotives and other equipment can be interchanged easily. The lack of a common rail gauge has frustrated efforts in Europe to boost intermodal rail, or containerized rail transport.

NAFTA has also spurred railroads to expand beyond their home countries, Wise said. The signing of free trade agreement helped fuel Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway’s expansion into the U.S. and BNSF’s reach into Canada, he said. NAFTA also enabled KCS to extend its reach into Mexico by acquiring Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana. The Mexican railroad is now known as Kansas City Southern de México.

http://www.joc.com/rail-intermodal/c..._20140925.html

http://www.alipac.us/f19/union-pacif...roject-213268/

Why Bill Gates And Warren Buffett Are Railroad Rivals

• MATTHEW DEBORD

• SEP. 3, 2014, 11:00 AM

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Rival railroad tycoons.

Bill Gates is the richest person in the world. Warren Buffett is number three.

But as Bloomberg's Frederic Tomesco and Thomas Black report, even though both billionaires are philanthropically entwined, when it comes to the old-school realm of investing in North America's railroads, Gates and Buffett part ways.
Tomesco and Black write:

Canadian National Railway Co. (CNR) is beating benchmark stock indexes as profits and shipments surge, a boost for Gates, the largest shareholder....
BNSF Railway Co., owned by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/B), is struggling. North America’s biggest railroad by sales is grappling with slow traffic and is being scrutinized by U.S. regulators for poor service, spurring concern that it risks a permanent loss of some customers.

It seems perfectly logical for Buffett to own a railroad company. His much-lauded investment philosophy hinges on putting money only into businesses he can understand — in terms of operations, products, and, crucially, opportunites.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Perfect for Buffett's portfolio.

The Oracle of Omaha bought BNSF as the U.S. economic recovery was picking up steam. Buffett saw the railway as an idea way to play the bounce-back at a core level: resurgent demand for goods meant that those goods would need to be moved in greater numbers from point A to point B.

For Gates, on the other hand, being a latter-day railway tycoon seems far less in-character. A tech titan owning a big chunk of a business that runs on mid-20th century technology? Well, maybe Gates and his advisors just asked themselves "What Would Warren Do?"

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

What Would Warren Do? He'd buy some of these.
In Gates' case, his railroad stake can be viewed as simply an investment — evidently a timely one — but nothing more than that. Gates isn't running CN.

But Buffett, because Berkshire Hathaway owns BNSF, is effectively running the railroad. He's also responsible for promoting its story, which since he took over the company, has been an uplifting and compelling one — a tale of American comeback, cast in terms that excite the little kid in everyone.

Trains! Who doesn't get a thrill witnessing a long freight train, loaded with America goods bound for American markets and ultimately American customers, rolling through the America landscape?

Getty Images

Ain't that America?

So Buffett has a bit of a problem here. A harsh winter was unkind to BNSF, and as Reuters reported in August, the railway is in something of a rebuilding phase. That doesn't mean Berkshire Hathaway is backing down, however.

Bloomberg and others have noted that Buffett is planning to put $5 billion into BNSF to improve the railroads operations.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Buffett isn't giving up.

SEE ALSO: As Buffett praises his BNSF railroad, customers rail against delays

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-b...#ixzz3PL55kqeq

Our Railroad

Today's BNSF Railway is the product of nearly 400 different railroad lines that merged or were acquired over the course of 160 years.
While many different railroads combined to form BNSF, the people who worked at those railroads shared many traits. The people who built BNSF were — and continue to be — a unique breed, blending the forward-thinking of dreamers with the pragmatism of results-oriented business leaders. This heritage played a central role in settling and growing the American West, and today, BNSF continues to have a significant impact in meeting the needs of shippers and serving the economy.