The merger application for Canada Pacific (CP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) rail, green-lit by the Surface Transportation Board (STB) just last week, promises to take 64,000 long-haul truck shipments off the road each year, and the Biden administration will most likely hold them to that.
The merger will create the first single-line railway connecting the U.S., Mexico and Canada, and both STB and CPKC, the name for the merged rail line, explicitly state the goal is taking trucks off the road.
“A combined CPKC will connect North America through a unique rail network able to enhance competition, provide improved reliable rail service, take trucks off public roads and improve rail safety," CP President and Chief Executive Officer Keith Creel said in a press release.
STB "expects the merger and imposed conditions to result in an overall public benefit," with some of those major benefits explicitly spelled out as reduced highway traffic, reduced pollution and moving more shipments to rail systems, which have a better safety record than trucks, according to the board. 
Some charts from CPKC's 1,000-plus page merger application showing just how and where the railway plans to take truckloads off the road.CPKC
The merger will "give shippers on that railroad the ability to access, without interchange, all three countries – a true NAFTA railroad, or USMCA railroad," said Todd Tranausky, FTR Intelligence's vice president of rail and intermodal on a recent podcast.
"It gives shippers new markets and easier lengths of haul and movements between Canada and Mexico," he continued. "Particularly for grain shippers, for some auto parts shippers, potentially for intermodal as well," the merger could significantly heat up competition.
