Texas Mexican Railway
The Texas Mexican Railway (TM), or TexMex for short, was a US regional railroad company in Texas . The headquarters of the Kansas City Southern (KCS) company was Woodland . The company drove a 883 km long route between the border crossing to Mexico in Laredo and the KCS network in Beaumont (Texas) and thus established the important connection between the two parts of the company, Kansas City Southern Railway in the USA and Kansas City Southern de México in Mexico .
The company, which today only exists on paper, owns the US part of the international bridge in Laredo. The company last had 270 employees. There is no longer a separate locomotive park.
Route network
The route network comprised the approximately 250 kilometer long route from Corpus Christi to Laredo, which was owned by the company. There are also rights to use the route over the Union Pacific Railroad from Robstown Crossing via Victoria , Flatonia, Houston to Beaumont. The company also owns the closed Rosenberg - Wharton - Victoria line.
history
In 1875, Uriah Lott founded the Corpus Christi, San Diego and Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad. Two years later the 40 km route between Corpus Christi and Banquele was completed and in 1878 San Diego (Texas) was reached. The interim plan to build one of the routes to Eagles Pass was abandoned. Finally, in 1881, Laredo was reached on the Mexican border and in the same year the name was changed to "The Texas Mexican Railway". In 1883 the bridge over the Rio Grande was completed, creating a continuous rail link to Mexico.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the company was taken over by the Mexican Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México , shortly thereafter a New York bank was appointed trustee. This remained so until 1982, when TexMex was sold to the Mexican transport company Grupo TMM , at that time still Transportacion Maritima Mexicana, and its subsidiary Mexrail was placed under its control. In order to meet the expected competition from the merger of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Southern Pacific Railroad , KCS acquired 49% of Mexrail in 1995. Speculation paid off and TexMex received route usage rights for 99 years between Robstown and Beaumont, where a connection to the KCS network existed , as part of the merger permit .
In 2001 the company acquired the 137-kilometer route between Victoria and Rosenberg from the Union Pacific Railroad. This means that the existing use of the UP route can be partially replaced in the future. Most of the track systems had been dismantled. The KCS reopened the line in 2007–2009 and put it back into operation on June 17, 2009.
In 2002, Mexrail was transferred from the owners KCS and TMM to the joint subsidiary Transportacion Ferroviaria Mexicana (TFM), at the same time TexMex officially ceased independent operations. In preparation for the complete takeover of TFM by KCS, it acquired 51% of Mexrail in August 2004. However, since the proceedings with the antitrust authorities had not yet been completed, the shares were initially handed over to a trustee. Finally, on January 1, 2005, control of TexMex was taken over. The company continues to exist independently on paper, but is fully integrated into the operational processes of KCS.
Individual evidence
Web links
- Information on the KCS website
- Photo gallery