Canadian Pacific Kansas City expects to open a new Dallas area auto distribution center at the end of the month.
As part of the railroad's strategy to service automotive demand, the 30-acre rail yard will help distribute “many of the top-selling vehicles within the Texas market,” EVP and Chief Marketing Officer John Brooks said during an April 24 earnings call, including vehicles built by CPKC’s anchor tenant General Motors.
As the railroad targets the automotive segment as a growth area, Dallas is a start for new opportunities for the railroad, CPKC President and CEO Keith Creel told analysts.
“We’re not going to get it built out overnight,” he said. “It’s a two, three, four, five-year plan.”
Through its Dallas-area expansion the railroad aims to further develop a closed loop automotive supply chain, where parts or finished vehicles can move across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, according to CPKC executives.
A previous phase of CPKC’s strategy included signing a partnership with CSX and regional railroad operator Genessee & Wyoming to further secure a connection to the automotive markets in the southeast U.S.
CPKC’s new Dallas area auto distribution center represents a portion of the 220-acre Wiley Logistics Park in Wiley, Texas. The logistics park’s development was originally a project between Kansas City Southern and NorthPoint Development.
Kansas City Southern opened a terminal at the Wiley Logistics Park in 2015, which it later expanded in 2018. CPKC took over the site after its merger with Canadian Pacific in 2023.
Nadeem Velani, EVP and CFO of the railroad, said during the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference in March that the Wiley development helps the company reach its goal of putting more freight on trains and take trucks off the road while connecting automotive manufacturing hubs in Mexico to automakers in the southeastern U.S.
CPKC has access to 25 automotive facilities with the potential to reach 200 million consumers across the U.S., Mexico and Canada, according to the railroad. It also serves about 90% of automotive assembly plants in Mexico.
