CALGARY – Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. says it’s untroubled by a draft decree from Mexico’s president that would require freight railways to allow passenger service on their tracks.

The Calgary-based railway says the decree, expected to take effect on Nov. 20, stresses that freight rail service will be respected and that it does not anticipate any adverse impact on its network — the only one to stretch from Canada through to the United States and Mexico.

President Andres Manuel López Obrador denied any notion that his decree to be issued later this month amounted to expropriation of private property. He said existing law guarantees passenger trains priority.

Still, almost no regular passenger service remains in Mexico following a 1995 reform that gave concessions to two private railway companies: Mexico’s Ferromex and a subsidiary of U.S.-based Kansas City Southern, which Canadian Pacific acquired in April.

CPKC says it has reached a deal with the Mexican government to carry out a study around passenger trains on a roughly 200-kilometre corridor running northwest from Mexico City.

The draft decree also proposes passenger rail service on another, much longer leg of CPKC-run track between Laredo, Texas, and San Luis Potosi in central Mexico.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2023.

— With files from The Associated Press in Mexico City.

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