Kansas City, Missouri-based Kansas City Southern Lines a transportation holding company with railroad investments, is being acquired by the Calgary, Canada-based Canadian Pacific Railway, the iconic Canadian railway for approximately $29 billion.
Kansas City Southern CEO Patrick Ottensmeyer is attempting to reassure the Kansas City community leadership and its own employees that jobs are secure.
"I know Kansas City over the last decade or so has been the net loss of jobs because of mergers and other types of transactions. Kansas City is going to be an incredibly important part of this network as you look at the map, it’s really dead center in the network connecting Mexico, Canada and the U.S.”
Unfortunately, pronouncements that fall short of promises always seem to fall by the wayside as the surviving organization reduces redundancies, managementm functions, and infrastructure. While transportation hubs and operations tend to be in strategic fixed location. However, managerial staff and support personnel can be located almost anywhere.
While Kansas City Southern's headquarters in downtown Kansas City and Kansas City is expected to become the U.S. headquarters for Canadian Pacific, Canadian Pacific’s current U.S. headquarters is in Minneapolis, which will remain a base of operations for Canadian Pacific Kansas City.
The benefit for both rail systems is there is no overlapping trackage and shippers can deal with a single company for rail transportation from Canada to Mexico through the United States.
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?