attorney William A. Mullins, who last month submitted KCS’ application to State for a presidential permit to OK the project. Mullins said the recent drop in rail traffic with the global recession does not change the need for KCS to alter its yard layout in the Laredo area, and replace the current 1920s-era, single-track bridge it operates there with a double-track span that runs rail freight through a less crowded corridor east of the city. He said the KCS plan is to remake its freight hub and bridge system there to be something that will “be in service for a century or better.” Given how fast both trucking and rail traffic was growing in recent years, KCS says it needs to lock in a strategy now for the time when its aging bridge and terminals will no longer keep up.

And it estimates that to get permits, arrange financing and build the facilities would take a long time past the current downturn.

Mullins said reconfiguring KCS lines and facilities around Laredo, and open a new-era bridge, could take “best case, five to seven years (but) more likely seven to 10.”

Not everyone agrees that the KCS plan would be the best option at Laredo. UP is already sitting on its own presidential permit for new Laredo facilities — including a bridge at a different spot on the Rio Grande River — if and when it considers expansion to be feasible. And local officials have their own preferred plan that is going through a State Department review.

But KCS may have gotten a leg up late last year when the outgoing Bush administration embraced the project as one of several

at the Border
keep their focus on U.S.-Mexico trade