KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Protests are once again blocking Kansas City Southern de Mexico’s main line to the Port of Lazaro Cardenas.
“The main rail line on the Caltzontzin District has been blocked due to civil protests, completely unrelated to our company, occurring on or near the Kansas City Southern de Mexico’s track, impeding our ability to continue providing the regular public freight rail transport service,” KCS said in a service advisory Wednesday.
KCS has been forced to embargo traffic to and from Mexico’s busiest port, the railroad said. No detours are available. The railroad said it was working with state and federal governments to resolve the blockades.
“Finding a sustainable solution to this interruption is our priority and you have our commitment we will explore all avenues,” the railroad told its customers. “We ask that those of you impacted, and in case you deem it convenient, also raise your concern with the appropriate authorities.”
Protests by teachers and other labor groups in Mexico are nothing new: They’ve been blocking the rail lines of KCS de Mexico and its predecessors periodically for 37 years.
The latest round of protests — which have nothing to do with KCS — began on June 11, effectively shutting down rail traffic to and from the Port of Lazaro Cardenas.
The protests can have a significant impact on KCS volume and revenue.
The port traffic that KCS hauls in stack trains between Lazaro and the Mexico City area represents about a quarter of KCS’s overall intermodal volume. Last year protests shut down the line for 59 days from September through Dec. 1. Intermodal volume from Lazaro fell to 5,800 containers in the fourth quarter, down from 47,700 a year earlier.
The impact of the protest has lingered into this year as shippers have been slow to return to KCS between Lazaro and Mexico City and instead are relying on trucks, executives have said.
The sad part is that if a single car had illegal drugs in it, those lines would NEVER be closed.
Ironically, potential acquirer CN has also had its problems with track blockages due to protestors in Canada.
run 8.
problem solved.
How come the protesters are only targeting the rail lines and not the highways?
Ignorant protestors are only hurting themselves with actions like this.