Kansas City: Continuing to grow through intermodalism
December 11, 2006 by SwizStick
Filed under Misc Logistics, Supply Chain Management
We’ve been talking about Kansas City and the development of SmartPort for some time now. Kansas City has been hard at work developing themselves into a modern, world-class logistics hub, and they are positioning themselves to grow even further with rail investments in intermodal development:
An audience of real estate professionals hosted by Grubb & Ellis/The Winbury Group was briefed on the massive new intermodal center being developed by BNSF near Gardner, as well as Kansas City Southern’s plan for a similar facility at the former Richards-Gebaur Memorial Airport and the city’s push to attract development to Kansas City International Airport.
“Our opportunity for growth is tremendous,†said Chris Gutierrez, president of Kansas City SmartPort Inc., who added Kansas City already leads the nation in railroad cargo tonnage and is second only to Chicago in total railroad car activity.
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The force driving the growth of intermodal is the huge amount of trade flowing into West Coast ports.
“It’s all about China,†Kalb said.
He added that companies are finding it more cost-effective — in part because of rising fuel prices — to ship goods by rail and then transport shorter distances by truck.
Similar activity is occurring at Richards-Gebaur, where Kansas City Southern is helping develop an intermodal center to offload Asian goods being shipped here via Mexico.
Gutierrez said Kansas City may soon be in a position to be at the center of an east-west railroad corridor operated by BNSF, and a north-south corridor being operated by Kansas City Southern.
All great news, to be sure, and Kansas City has been both smart and innovative enough to develop themselves into a logistics hub for the mid-west. However, it’s all for naught if the West Coast ports get bogged down with congestion and equipment shortages at the time the containers are transferred to rail.
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