Reading some railroad-related items on Quora. Three years ago, a Canadian insider mentioned that Canadian Pacific was about ready to buy Kansas City Southern, forming the first complete north-south railroad across all of the continent. Sure enough, the merger was completed in 2023 and fully running this year. This is BIG news for both countries but it was never discussed in any media that I heard.
Here’s the main website. Here’s the map. The merger didn’t build any new track because the tracks were already connected in three places. The merger allows the same freight train to run from Calgary or Montreal direct to Houston or Mexico under the same rules and dispatch system, instead of switching the cars at the junction of the two systems. One system now reaches both oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.
Hmm. Did Trump try to fuck this up? Of course he did, but CPKCS is finding a workaround, following the same smart method as Canada itself.
= = = = =
For clarity, not that anyone will ever read this: Unlike Stoller I don’t think monopoly is automatically bad, and I don’t think mergers are automatically bad. A regulated monopoly in vital infrastructure is often best. Bell Tel was the best. It was given unique privileges, and it paid for those privileges with a unique level of service and research, creating the most important science in speech and hearing, and developing the only important invention since 1908. LBOs are bad because they destroy good companies and good jobs.
This particular merger is closer to the Bell type. Railroads are a VITAL infrastructure, and this particular merger helps two railroads to serve their customers better. It doesn’t wipe out KCS; it makes KCS an integral part of a BETTER system with more resources and more customers.
Trade between countries isn’t automatically bad, IF it’s strictly regulated to insure that each country can benefit from its own best skills and maintain its own ways of doing things. US and Canada had good trade before 1965. Bilateral trade arrangements, constantly negotiated by both parties, are a scaled-up version of normal relations between people or businesses. Trade is bad when it’s designed to serve one country or one billionaire. See Graybill’s Law.
Polistra's Mill 