Ingrams August 2023

DESTINATION MISSOURI REASONS TO CHOOSE

BY RAIL AND BY AIR, BIG CHANGES BURNISH MISSOURI’S CREDENTIALS IN LOGISTICS. Transportation and Infrastructure

To the untrained eye, little has chan ged over the past year with the trans portation infrastructure that supports Missouri’s economy. We still have major cross-country interstates in each direc tion. We still have the same number of international airports. The watersheds of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers still hold their natural flows. But much has changed with the fun damentals of moving goods and with the process of moving people. Start with the goods. The $33 bil lion merger of Canadian Pacific Railroad and Kansas City Southern Railway, ag reed to in late 2021, was approved earlier this year by the U.S. Surface Transporta tion Board. That was the last hurdle to creating a new rail enterprise. And it’s one that will change freight dynam ics from the sunny coasts of Mexico to chillier climes across Canada and much of what lies in between. Though the combined Canadian Pa cific Kansas City remains the smallest of the six Class 1 railways in the U.S. by revenue, it accounts for a network of ap proximately 20,000 miles, employing close to 20,000 people. While the ink is dry on the contracts and regulatory

approvals, full operational integration of the two systems is expected to take three years to complete. CPKC plans capital investments in new infrastructure of more than $275 million by 2026 to improve the safety and capacity of the core north-south main line between Louisiana and the Up per Midwest, running straight through

pandemic passenger levels. Both of those developments lever age an asset that makes Missouri unique as an ecosystem for business and com merce. That would be its centrality. And secondary to that, the assets that allow companies and individuals to take ad vantage of that centrality. As noted earlier, Missouri has those

Strategically important interstate highways, a thriving system of railroad lines, international airports and even waterways give Missouri businesses multiple means of shipping products statewide and around the world.

Missouri. The company will support the expansion of Amtrak and other passen ger services on its network. The latter is one big potential change in the people-moving process. The other is taking place by air. Two weeks before the rail merger was endorsed, Kansas City took the wraps off its new single terminal international airport. It didn’t take long before the $1.5 billion project had air travel on the threshold of pre

assets in spades: by land, with its ro bust interstate highway systems and rail lines, by air (cargo shipments through two international airports), and by wa terway (the cross-state Missouri River, connecting to the nation’s mightiest riv er, the Mississippi, in St. Louis.) Take a closer look at the highways. Interstate 35 cuts through the northwest corner of the state, tying Kansas City to both Mexico and Canada. Crossing from

GOING BIG | Massive logistics facilities, like the Hunt Midwest Business Center in Kansas City, continue to rise from the plains, transforming Missouri's image in national distribution circles.

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