Kansas City Southern (KCS) announced that its subsidiaries, Kansas City Southern de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (KCSM) and The Kansas City Southern Railway Company (KCSR) will provide a new, daily service from Lazaro Cardenas, San Luis Potosi and Monterrey, Mexico to the southeastern U.S. markets via Jackson, Miss., with connecting service to Atlanta, Ga. Major distribution markets along the route include Mexico City, San Luis Potosi and Monterrey in Mexico, and Laredo, Texas, and Jackson, Miss., with continuing service to Atlanta, GA in the US. The service will begin the third week of June with a commitment to provide transit times competitive with those from other West Coast ports.

"This is an important, new daily intermodal service coming out of the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, San Luis Potosi and Monterrey into key, southeastern U.S. markets," said Art Shoener, KCS executive vice president and chief operating officer. "We are confident that this new service will provide shippers with better service, better alternatives, and grow with time."

The new dedicated service will operate daily, seven days a week from Lazaro Cardenas with early delivery on the sixth day to Jackson and early delivery on the seventh day connecting to Atlanta.

Consumer and manufactured goods are expected to be the primary freight shipments moving with the new dedicated service. Containers originating at the Port of Lazaro Cardenas from ocean carriers, including Maersk, CP Ships, NYK and others, and trailer load goods originating from Schneider National and their customers out of San Luis Potosi and Monterrey should constitute the majority of the cargo initially moving through this service. Eventually, KCS plans to expand the service to Houston, Texas, and Kansas City, Mo.

Scott Arves, president of Schneider National, Inc., who will use the new service said: "We do more cross-border business than any other carrier in the industry. Our customers are very excited about bringing this service to the marketplace and see the creative, new options it opens up to them as shippers."

Eduardo Vidales, president of Transport Cargo Service, the logistics coordinator for the route, says, "This is a tremendous service offering for shippers in this lane. This service brings all the key players together in one logistics cycle with extraordinary results. After reviewing the results, we believe that shippers will be very interested in securing space on this train."

Gonzalo Ortiz, general manager of Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) in Lazaro Cardenas, said: "We're pleased with the announcement of the new dedicated train service, connecting our customers from Lazaro Cardenas to Mexican population centers and the southeastern United States. The service is just in time to assist customers with peak season and is a clear indicator of the growth of traffic and capacity planned for this Port." On March 31, 2006, HPH broke ground on its three-phase expansion of the Specialized Container Terminal at the Port of Lazaro Cardenas. The first phase will represent a $200 million investment. The first phase of the expansion is expected to be operational in July 2007.

Dedicated, premium intermodal service is part of KCS' strategy to develop an International Intermodal Corridor, connecting Lazaro Cardenas to the southeast and central US with consistent, long-haul rail moves and strategically located intermodal terminals. With its ongoing capital investments to improve capacity in these corridors and dedicated, premium intermodal service, KCS anticipates that the intermodal segment of its overall business will continue to grow.

To better serve growing traffic volumes, KCS is planning to develop a primary intermodal terminal at the Port of Lazaro Cardenas. This location is ideally-situated to provide Asian trading partners with a competitive alternative to more congested West Coast ports. The Port of Lazaro Cardenas boasts many natural amenities and is benefiting from significant infrastructure improvements from the world's largest developer and operator of deepwater