UP goes to court to resolve trackage-rights beef with CPKC

(Source: Progressive Railroading 08/28/2023)

Union Pacific Railroad is asking a federal court to resolve a dispute with Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Kansas City Southern Railway Co. over their use of UP tracks to haul grain.

The case involves what UP claims is CPKC’s and KCS’s “attempts to make Union Pacific haul their grain traffic on Union Pacific’s railroad tracks under a new reading of a 35-year-old contract,” according to UP’s Aug. 23 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

In 1988, UP granted KCS certain haulage rights for grain traffic between Beaumont and Houston/Galveston, Texas. The contract provided, at most, haulage rights for grain traffic interchanged to KCS at Kansas City, Missouri, according to UP.

During the CP and KCS merger process, the two Class Is “represented that the creation of CPKC would improve efficiencies eliminating interchanges between the two companies in Kansas City,” UP’s complaint states. But weeks after the merger was completed in April, CPKC and KCS sent a train over UP tracks that had not been interchanged to KCS at Kansas City, and therefore wasn’t eligible for haulage under the agreement.

“Union Pacific seeks a declaration that it has no obligation to move the traffic at issue between Beaumont and Houston/Galveston, Texas, under the terms of the parties’ agreement,” UP’s filing states.

Click here to download UP’s complaint.