KCS marks 14th anniversary of Mexican railroad concession

Kansas City Southern celebrated the 14th anniversary since the concession to operate the railroad in Mexico on June 24. The First Lady of Mexico, Margarita Zavala, sent a video of congratulations to KCS and acknowledged its importance to the Mexico economy. In other news, KCS president and CEO Dave Starling traveled to Mexico, where he joined KCS Mexico President and Executive Representative Jose Zozaya on a tour of key KCS locations. Starling and Zozaya also hosted Mayor Carlos de la Fuente Flores of San Nicolas de los Garza, Tamaulipas at the KCS offices in Monterrey, where they showed him the dispatch center, new finance building and business cars. The SCT and mayor authorized KCS to increase train speed on the line from 20 to 35 kilometers per hour (mph equivalents), which improves velocity and security. Starling and Zozaya attended the opening ceremony for the new Country Park intermodal terminal in the State of Mexico as well. Also, the KCS customer solutions team in Mexico was recently reorganized from multiple commodity groups into three: carload, agricultural/mineral and intermodal/automotive. KCS says the new organization results in more pro-active notifications and greater emphasis on providing strategic solutions to customer issues. In the near future, the customer solutions team in Mexico will migrate to the same customer relationship management tool being used in the U.S. This transition will allow KCS management to see current and historical data for customers account activity on both sides of the border. The transparency will support greater accountability in meeting customers' needs.