By Justin Franz
CALGARY — Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern announced late Friday that they had filed their application to merge with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board in what would be the first major railroad consolidation in a generation.
The two railroads made the announcement late Friday but the filing had yet to be posted on the STB’s website.
According to a press release, the filing would detail how the combined system, called “Canadian Pacific Kansas City,” would enhance competition, improve passenger rail service, and create more than 1,000 new jobs system-wide, including 760 in the United States over the next three years. The railroad also stated that they would invest more than $275 million to improve rail safety and capacity on the core north-south CPKC main line between Louisiana and the Upper Midwest.
The filing is expected to detail exactly how the merger will work and how the combined system will operate.
“We are excited to file our joint application for this unique, pro-competitive combination and once-in-a-lifetime partnership,” said CP President and Chief Executive Officer Keith Creel. “CPKC is an extraordinary opportunity to inject new competition and new capacity into the U.S. rail network, further USMCA trade flows, improve safety, grow employment and facilitate new passenger services. We are ready to work with the STB as the board gives this transaction a thorough and appropriate review, and ultimately look forward to approval so we can get to work delivering these benefits to the North American economy.”
Earlier this year, CP announced plans to merge with KCS, but those plans were briefly derailed when Canadian National offered more money. A battle between the two Class Is ensued and, for months, it appeared CN was the victor. In late August, however, the STB ruled that CN could not put KCS into trust, thus killing the deal. The STB has appeared to be friendly to a CP-KCS merger because the combined system would still be the smallest of North America’s Class Is.
This story will be updated when more information becomes available.
A map of the proposed Canadian Pacific Kansas City.
