CANCUN, Q. ROO.- Coincidences on the track. The main railway companies specialized in the movement of goods in Mexico, the United States and Canada observe that the Mexican market presents a wide potential for growth, which has generated the need to trigger investments and the construction of new intermodal services that cover the main industrial zones in North America.
“At GMXT (Grupo México Transportes) we are betting on infrastructure, we know that intermodal is what is coming, so in the following years we will be very focused on that, terminal growth, expansions of our routes, Laredos and double tracks to increase capacity,” said Jesús Rubín, Commercial Director of GMXT, during his participation in the panel Evolution and opportunities in the development of railroads , held within the framework of the XXV Congress of Intermodal Transportation of the Mexican Association of Intermodal Transportation (AMTI) .
Prior to the closing of this edition, GMXT announced that by 2025 it will make an investment of 410.3 million dollars for various expansion, security and efficiency projects that will allow it to grow and improve its service, as well as optimize productivity performance.
Paul Hirsch, associate vice president in Mexico for BNSF , added that this growth potential led them to enter into a commercial and operational alliance with GMXT and JB Hunt , with the launch in January of this year of an intermodal service between Monterrey, Silao-Bajío and Pantaco-Mexico City, which has allowed them to offer shorter transit times for cross-border movement with the United States.
He also indicated that they are also launching an “overweight corridor” between Mexico and Dallas Fort Worth, together with other logistics and transportation partners, such as EASO Transport ; they are also reviewing, together with AMTI, the possibility of developing temperature-controlled products in cross-border services between Mexico and the United States.
“There is a lot of potential for growth,” said Hirsch, who was awarded the Silver Container in the Lifetime Achievement category by AMTI this year.
For Humberto Vargas, vice president in Mexico for Union Pacific (UP) , one of the main railway companies in the United States with a commercial presence in Mexico for 30 years, the train is a fundamental piece in the consolidation of the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC) and the attention for companies that are migrating to this region due to the effects of the relocation of their productive assets ( nearshoring ).
The UP executive contextualized that currently around 18 thousand cargo transport units cross the border between Mexico and the United States every day, while the railroad, in general, crosses about 800 containers , which is just under 5% of what is traded between both nations. “Mexico is an option for growth, we see it as a growth engine,” he said.
In April of last year, Canadian National Railway (CN) , UP and GMXT announced the creation of the Falcon Premium intermodal service , just one week after the merger between Canadian Pacific (CP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) to form Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) , creating the first seamless rail line in the entire North American region.
“The pandemic has led us to create commercial and strategic alliances (…) we are going all in,” said Rossana Cárcamo, director of Supply Chain and Business Development in Mexico and the United States for CN, another of Canada’s major railway companies, with a presence in Mexico for 25 years.
According to Adriana Covarrubias, Senior Manager of Intermodal Sales at CPKC Mexico, market trends have included more Asian companies moving their operations to North America, leading to an increase in demand for freight transportation in the North-South corridor.
In response to this situation, CPKC has also made new services and investments that promise to reduce the time it takes to transport goods, including its intermodal service Mexico Midwest Express (MMX) , launched in May of last year and linking the markets of Chicago, Kansas City, Texas, Monterrey and San Luis Potosí; as well as the construction of the second border railway bridge in Laredo, Texas, for 120 million dollars.
At another level of agreement, representatives of the railway companies indicated that they will seek to have more companies join the intermodal services that are currently offered, since there is a wide potential for converting goods that use road transport on long routes to do so via railroad, and for the last mile to be exclusively for road transport. But to achieve this, the directors emphasized that it is necessary to have operational standards on the intermodal ramps to facilitate access to more clients in Mexico.
Comment and follow us on X: @EnriqueDuRio/ @GrupoT21
