LAREDO, Texas — Kansas City Southern will hold a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday for the second span the railway is building over the Rio Grande at Laredo.
The current International Railway Bridge linking Laredo with Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, is the busiest railroad freight gateway in North America.
The U.S. ceremony will take place just south of Zaragoza Street on the east side of the maine line. This new bridge will be constructed alongside the existing bridge and upon estimated completion in 2025, it will help expedite trains through corridor to relieve traffic congestion in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.
The U.S. presidential permit for construction of the new single-track span bridge was received in July 2020. All permits are now in hand on both sides of the border, and design work is complete as KCS moves into the construction phase of the project.
The existing single-track bridge is the only railroad bridge crossing of the Rio Grande linking Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. KCS and Union Pacific use the bridge to interchange with KCS de Mexico.
The new capacity will help improve security, facilitate better fluidity of train traffic through Laredo, and retain Laredo’s status as a center of North American trade in the future.
Cross-border trains currently fleet northbound or southbound over the existing span in four-hour directional windows. The bridge handles more than two dozen trains per day, with the lion’s share being UP-KCS de Mexico interchange moves.
KCS currently runs an average of 10.5 trains across the bridge, according to the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger application. Post-merger, CPKC expects to send an average of 19.4 trains per day across the border at Laredo.
