NAFTA railway nears completion

Railway Age, Feb, 2005

Mike Haverty's plan to create an integrated NAFTA Railway stretching from Chicago to Mexico City is close to completion now that Kansas City Southern and Grupo TMM have reached agreement on the sale of Transportacion Ferroviaria Mexicana (TFM) to KCS. The transaction still requires the approval of KCS shareholders (RA, January, p. 6).

Haverty has assembled a new management team to run the NAFTA Railway, which consists, north to south, of Gateway Western, KCS Railway, Texas-Mexican Railway, and TFM. Arthur Shoener, a consultant and former Union Pacific executive vice president-operations, is the new vice president and COO of KCS and president and CEO of KCSR and Tex-Mex. He reports directly to Haverty, now chairman, president, and CEO of KCS and chairman of KCSR and Tex-Mex. Jerry Heavin, formerly KCS's senior vice president-operations, is senior vice president-international engineering, overseeing infrastructure for all KCS rail holdings, including the Panama Canal Railway. Owen Zidar, who spent 25 years at BNSF and Pacer Global Logistics, is vice president-marketing.

Shoener is responsible for managing all of KCS's U.S. rail holdings and is described as having "an important advisory role" in the oversight of TFM. He also will be involved with the Panama Canal Railway. Shoener began his railroading career in 1968 as a management trainee at the Missouri Pacific. He subsequently held operations positions with MoPac and was serving as general manager of the eastern region in 1982 when UP acquired the MoPac. In 1991, he was named UP's executive vice president-operations. Shoener left UP in 1997 and established a transportation consulting firm with domestic and international clients.