Just as rail blockades end in one country, they resume in another.
On the same day Canadian protestors in Quebec ended an almost month-long blockade [see “Trains News Wire Digest for Friday, March 6“], Kansas City Southern has informed customers that protests are once again disrupting operations on Kansas City Southern de Mexico, as well as other railroads.
For KCS de Mexico, protests are blocking the main line between Uruapan and Morelia in the state of Michoacan, disrupting service to the Port of Lazero Cardenas. The railroad says it is arranging detours where available, communicating with state and federal governments to urge a resolution, and pursuing legal remedies.
Previous protests have been staged in the same area several times in 2019 [see “Protesters block KCS de Mexico mainline in Mexico,” Trains News Wire, Sept 12, 2019], leading the railroad’s president to call for jail terms for those responsible [see “KCS de Mexico President: Whoever blocks railways should go to jail,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 27, 2019].
I believe it’s time for USA to start planning its response to when this sort of stuff wafts south from Canada and north from Mexico. Not if, but when.
I’ve said several times already that Kansas City Southern should consider pulling out of Mexico while there’s still time and also hand over its Mexican assets to Grupo Mexico since they’re now in control of the vast majority of main lines in Mexico, but it’s not just due to these protests. How is it that trains can get moving with the continuing war against narco-cartels and the rampant political and business corruption that this war has caused, not to mention the fact that the war is the one of the reasons why, duh, refugees (just to avoid offending anyone in the age of You-Know-Who, my pet name for our 45th president) from there and elsewhere in Latin America use the trains heading for the border as a means of getting themselves over the border without being able to have proper documentation for travel? I’m just asking. I’m also sure that if the US government would be doing more to help the Mexican government and other governments in Latin America become more democratic and combat these kinds of groups, we wouldn’t be having these problems in the first place and there probably wouldn’t be any protests blocking the rail lines to begin with. (BTW, I’m actually male, and my name is Wilson. “Mary” is my mother’s name.)