Kansas City Southern Railway merges with Canadian Pacific

When you’re stopped at a railroad crossing in Sequoyah County watching the train zip past, have you noticed a difference?

While it’s virtually the same Kansas City Southern Railway train that you’ve seen day after day, year after year, there’s been a slight difference since the middle of March. That’s when federal regulators approved Canadian Pacific’s acquisition of KSC in a $31 million merger, the first such major coupling in more than 20 years.

CP and KCS were the smallest of North America’s seven major railroads, and even after the merger continues to be the smallest with 19,800 miles of track. But despite still being the smallest, it’s the only railroad with links from Cana- da, through the U.S., and into Mexico.

Although KCS had only 150 miles of track in Sequoyah, Adair and LeFlore counties, the train is a frequent visitor to eastern Oklahoma. And with new traffic increases from Chicago to Laredo, Texas, there may be more trains passing through the county.

The approval by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) occurred March 15 following an arduous two-year review. A 212-page decision is still being reviewed by Canadian Pacific as the company prepares to exercise control of KCS as early as April 14. The control of the two railroads is complete, the merged railroad will be rebranded as CPKC.

Canadian Pacific brings 12,500 miles of track to the merger, most of which is in Canada, as well as throughout the Upper Midwest and northeastern U.S. KCS, which was founded in 1887, brings 7,300 miles of track, which stretches across 10 midwestern, southeastern and southern states.

According to the STB, the merger will result in increased rail traffic and growth in support passenger operations, and will shift some 64,000 truckloads of freight from highways to rail, while facilitating grain deliveries from the Upper Midwest to the Gulf Coast and Mexico.

The combined companies are expected to add more than 800 new union jobs in the U.S. to the 20,000 current employees, and the STB says little to no track redundancy or overlapping routes are expected.

CP, which was founded in 1881 and is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, has been the safest railroad in North America for 17 consecutive years, and that standard will be employed with CPKC.