Dive Brief:
- To give Dallas-area shippers access to international shipping through the Port of New Orleans, Kansas City Southern (KCS) will restart its weekly shuttle service beginning late May or early June, the railroad announced. The shuttle service was halted in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina.
- KCS will operate a train from its intermodal terminal in Wylie to the Port of New Orleans, with 100 40-foot container wells traveling once per week in both directions. The rail cars will handle up to 400 TEUs capacity.
- The service is aimed at retail shippers who want to diversify their supply chains, as well as other shippers of other Dallas-based cargo such as cotton and auto parts and the growing plastic resin market.
Dive Insight:
The service is part of an effort to attract more international shipments through New Orleans, port officials said in a statement. The trains will be moved by the New Orleans Public Belt railroad between the agreed upon interchange point outside the city and the on-dock intermodal terminal in the port.
"This is an international product, connecting the shipping lines to the Dallas market through the Port of New Orleans gateway," Doniele Carlson, spokesperson for KCS, wrote to Supply Chain Dive in an email.
The trains will be moved by the New Orleans Public Belt railroad between the agreed upon interchange point outside the city and the on-dock intermodal terminal in the port.
Containers returning empty from the Dallas market could potentially help sustain the resin exports from the south Louisiana resin producers and packaging companies, Carlson said. Empty containers will also be available in New Orleans for the export needs of local industry.
While the goal of the service is to move import freight into the Dallas market, access to international shipping connections adds diversity to supply chains available in the region, according to Carlson.