All right. Good morning. Thanks for coming back here for the third and final day of the JP Morgan Industrials Conference on the transport track. I'm Brian Ossenbeck. Been covering the group for a little while here for the firm. Really happy and excited to have Canadian Pacific Kansas City here, CPKC. We've got President and CEO, Keith Creel, VP of IR, Maeghan Albiston. Thanks, guys, for coming. Really appreciate it.
Happy to be here.
Imagine D.C. is your second home these days, Keith.
Mm-hmm.
We'll save some of that for a little bit later. Want to start with the fundamentals and focus most of our time there. You know, the network was really building good momentum into last year. Obviously, weather came and kept coming, but where are you performing right now and sort of versus your expectations?
Well, listen, always an opportunity. I'm proud to talk about the team and the performance. You know, this year we started carrying a lot of momentum into 2026, operational momentum, obviously. We have maintained that. The Q1 , I've been very pleased with the performance of the team, you know, their ability to improve terminal dwell, network fluidity, car cycles, control cost. At the end of the day, PSR is about controlling what you can't control. I can't control the markets, I can't control the macro, but we create solutions instead of excuses. I can tell you, this operating team's done a phenomenal job from a safety standpoint, from a fluidity standpoint in converting the capital investments that we've made as we prepare this network to grow.
You know, we started this journey, we're a three-year-old company almost. We're approaching our birthday, our three years of our forever story, and we came together to drive growth and to connect these three nations uniquely. We had a very well-thought-out strategic plan to be able to do that, and we've integrated the companies and we've continued to create differentiated results. What the macro has not given us, we, again, we've made our own luck in connecting new markets, whether it's our land bridge, connecting Canada to Mexico or Mexico to the U.S. or Canada to the U.S. and all those spaces. We've continued to enjoy growth in the industry, which is unique in this macro environment. It's been enabled by this new network. We're in a good position.
We felt all along this quarter would probably be the most challenging from a compare standpoint given last year. You know, last year we had some pull-forward stuff with all the Liberation Day coming when it came to tariffs. From a compare standpoint, it was pretty challenging. Also maybe from a mix standpoint, and also from a fuel standpoint, and then carbon taxes. We've kind of navigated all that. We still see growth. We're experiencing growth this quarter, and we see very clear sight to our full year guidance. The year is playing out as we expected.
Okay. Great. I know you just said you're not going to make excuses and weather always comes, but we've heard a bunch of times this week already how much the impact of weather was on the quarter above normal, but also the impact of fuel, because clearly that spiked up pretty significantly. I don't know if you can give us a little bit of the context on those two items.
Yeah. The fuel piece, listen, that's something I can't control and obviously the fuel price has gone up. From a headwind challenge, I think we're seeing. I don't know, Nadeem Velani, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's about CAD 0.04 on earnings headwind impact. We'll recover that. Our fuel surcharges will kick in. Next quarter that will kind of go away. This year it's certain or this quarter, certainly a headwind for us. Other than that, though, operationally, from an expense control standpoint and a fluidity standpoint, yes, we've had winter, yes, we've had challenges, but I'm kind of a guy that I don't want to hear the excuses. I want to hear the solutions. That's the way we run the railway.
You know, just this week, with snow, with some minor outages we've had, given those network challenges. We had a big storm this week. We get the team together. To me, it's the preparation that makes the difference. It's how you prepare for those storms, and it's the perspective and the approach you take. We went through a lot of preparation last week in preparing for it, and I told the team this week and I said it, to me, it's a rounding error. I don't want to hear excuses. I want to hear what we're doing differently. As long as we've got our people positioned, and we're able to move the snow. We're a Canadian railroad. We understand what snow's all about. Frankly, that's exactly what's happened. We'll continue the momentum.
We'll finish the quarter out strong, continue to operate safely, and we control our own destiny.
One of the things couldn't really prepare for and obviously can't control is just the conflict in the Middle East. You were also at the TPM Transpacific Maritime Conference a couple of weeks ago. How did those meetings go with ocean carriers and forwarders and people in the supply chain? Because obviously things changed basically as we're all arriving in Long Beach.
Yeah. It's yeah, very topical. That's for certain, but much like us, there's so much uncertainty in it. You know, I think that the CEOs and the senior leaders I met with from our steamship customers, they don't expect, nor do I expect this to be a long-term thing. I think, you know, it will resolve itself hopefully sooner rather than later, and things will get back to normal, if there's anything normal anymore. But I don't think it's going to have a long-term impact. You know, obviously they're concerned about bunker fuel availability, some of those things that you got to have to run the business. But again, long term, I don't see it changing a lot. I think we get back to whatever normal is anymore, but certainly not what we're dealing with today.
One of the things that we've seen on the ocean side is Hapag-Lloyd making a bid for the assets of Zim, which, you know, assuming that goes through, how would that impact CPKC? Because I think there's a pretty strong relationship with Hapag-Lloyd over the years.
Yeah. Hapag is, for those of you that don't know, that's, we're their single largest transportation provider in the world. Longstanding relationship, very strategic partners. Rolf and I actually met when we were out in L.A. a couple weeks ago, and he's really excited about their continued growth. This acquisition, obviously, there's a lot of work to make it happen, but obviously they wouldn't be pursuing it unless they felt like they could get it approved.
If and when they do, then it's going to be accretive for us, because that growth, that traffic, obviously the Zim moves today would fall into Hapag-Lloyd ships in the Gemini Cooperation, and that's uniquely gonna be served by our network, whether it's discharging in Saint John or discharging in Vancouver or discharging at Lázaro Cárdenas. We're gonna benefit from it.
When we think about maybe going hopefully back to some sort of normal with trade relationships in the U.S., USMCA renegotiations coming up. What are some of the opportunities and risks from your perspective? You know, we've heard a lot about Canada diversifying away from the U.S. Obviously, that would take some time, I would think. Is that something that you're also, you know, strategizing for as a possibility?
I spent some time yesterday visiting with folks here in D.C., and I spent some time at the Mexican Embassy. They start their negotiations. Marcelo Ebrard came into town yesterday. They feel confident they're in a good place. I think the relationship between Donald Trump and his administration in Mexico is healthy and strong, and I see a path to resolution. At the end of the day, they want a good relationship. They understand the U.S. has concerns. President Donald Trump is very clear in what they are, and I think they came prepared to make a deal .
The approach I think they're gonna take is more of a bilateral for now, and then eventually, when it gets to a point where there's trilateral issues that involve Canada, then obviously they'll come to the table as well. Canada a bit behind Mexico. Mexico is leading in this regard. Again, in spite of all the rhetoric and maybe the tension, I think at the end of the day, when Canada and the United States really get into the nuts and the bolts of the negotiation, I think both parties understand free trade is important between these three nations. Trade between Canada and Mexico is important. I think Canada's gonna have to give some, and I'm sure that in the negotiation, the United States will move as well.
In the end, I think we land in a good place, and you're gonna see trade increase. The most important thing out of all this, to me, is a bit of certainty.
Mm-hmm.
Because there's been a lot of investment, especially in Mexico, foreign private investment that's kinda sitting on the sideline waiting to be put into play because they wanna know what the rules of engagement are. Once we get beyond this, I think we end up in a good place and uniquely for our network because we physically connect all three nations, we're gonna play a part of that success.
You mentioned Lázaro. How is that positioned in terms of imports both for domestic market and also cross-border? Because they've had a number of challenges over the years, as you well know, including some of the uncertainty we're just talking about. Is that something we're gonna start to get more calls on that port and more partners starting to ship through there as we get more certainty, or maybe that's even starting to ramp up?
Yeah, that's already started to ramp up. That's, you know, literally take you back about three years ago. There was a lot of unreliability in Lázaro Cárdenas coming into Mexico because of some of the protests and the blockings of the track. We had a lot of meetings. I had several meetings. I actually met with the governor of Michoacán, which is the state where Lázaro Cárdenas is located. He made a commitment to me three years ago that they understand the opportunity. As I explained to him, we have one chance to get this right. If we're gonna create this network, and we're gonna talk about modal shift and growing commerce and product coming through Lázaro Cárdenas, we have to have reliability. He made a commitment. He's kept it.
You know, as they've needed to, when they've needed to, they've addressed the concerns of those that were protesting. If someone feels like they need to protest, they're protesting other locations outside of the rail network. As a result of that, we've now got steamship lines, and Hapag-Lloyd is one that's critically important with the Gemini Cooperation, where they're starting to ramp up discharges. Customers have kinda gotten beyond the uncertainty, and they trust the supply chain now. We've got domestic products, and that's increased. We had about a 15% growth rate last year. That's continuing to ramp up this year as they go into the sales cycle. We've got Hyundai that's growing over that gateway as well.
We're positioned to continue to grow that gateway both domestically, intra Mexico, as well as cross-border coming into the Texas markets.
You mentioned coming into Texas, the Southeast Mexico Express, that's been in place, I think, for a little while, but now you're starting to really ramp up with some of the investments coming online. How do you expect to see that ramping up throughout the rest of this year? I guess how have shippers, you know, really reacted to that option?
Yeah, that's something that the shippers are learning about and getting excited. Kind of essentially, you create the vision. We bought the railroad. That was kind of a niche, you know, a niche add-on after the merger. We announced it at our investor day a couple years ago. We bought a railroad that was essentially a temp on our railroad, so we gotta create a main line. The last two and a half years, we have been investing. We've raised the track speed. CSX has done the same. Literally, at the end of this month, we're gonna have some of the last track speed increases that we'll be able to put in place.
We now have an infrastructure that will take you from Atlanta, essentially all the way to Monterrey in three days, and then middle Mexico in four days. Much like our 180/181 service that we put in place about a month after we became CPKC, which has grown substantially because of the reliability, we're gonna have a match coming out of the Atlanta, the southeast market. It's gonna originate on the CSX. It will come over the Meridian Speedway with us and straight into Mexico. The beauty of it is it can't be replicated by competition because we have the best route going into Monterrey, going into central Mexico. There's 1.8 million trucks that are crossing that border every day. We're creating the infrastructure and the reliable service. You know, I had a conversation, actually.
I met with Steve, at CSX. A couple of weeks ago, and I explained to him our journey on 180, 181, and I said, "Steve, listen, your team's gonna come to you and say, you know, this isn't a train load length train. Listen, we're all sensitive to cost, but sometimes you have to build it. You gotta put it in the marketplace. You gotta make the upfront investment and grow it. Once you do and you prove the product, that's when the Amazons of the world are gonna trust it. That's when the parts that are going to and from Mexico are gonna trust it.
That's when that service-sensitive truckload that is better served by the railway is gonna get on this service, and we're gonna grow with it. You know, he's committed, I'm committed, our teams are committed, and we're out selling it now. We're getting a lot of interest. The service is gonna go into place next quarter. Literally we're less than a month away, and we're super excited about it. It's gonna be a best-in-class service, truck-like reliable, truck-like competitive, and it's gonna take trucks off the road that are going to and from North and South, Mexico and the Southeast of the U.S.
We were just in Laredo area a couple months ago, and certainly a lot of growth and opportunity, but also disruption and uncertainty with, you know, some of the political, and cartel-related violence, unfortunately. How is that really impacting sentiment, you know, from some of the shippers, from the investment, you know, from your perspective in that area? It's easy to see the headlines, but it's a little harder to get a sense in terms of, like, if that's actually changing perspective on the ground.
Yeah. At a macro level from a headline, as the media usually does, often you can misunderstand the gravity of it. The gravity that we saw on TV, which was shocking.
Mm-hmm.
Number one, it wasn't that bad, in all honesty, and certainly not on our network because that was not occurring in our core network. What it does is it raises awareness of the security piece, and the reliability of our border crossing at Laredo is unparalleled. We have invested significant money in creating for our customers secure transit through that gateway. We don't have the kind of challenges that perhaps our competitor in Mexico has. Our history and our reputation is different. It's because our product is different. Even customers, I'll tell you this is a very topical discussion that's kind of I've always knew that it mattered, but having a customer tell you that's pretty compelling.
Just, I guess last month, February, once a year, we bring our selves and marketing team together, and I call it an alignment meeting, and we go through, kind of celebrate a little bit what we did, but most importantly, what has to be done. Then part of that process, we have a customer panel. We bring two or three customers in because we wanna hear the voice of the customer. One of these particular customers is a two-decade-long transportation decision-maker for a very large United States manufacturing company that produces some products in Mexico. They ship to Canada for retail stores. They ship to the U.S. for retail stores. We have, with our new company, went to them and sold a concept that is unique to the industry because of the reliability of the service.
We have not only an intermodal product, which is using 180, 181, we also have a boxcar product. We're moving new boxcars. That contract is ramping up now. In the conversation, some of our sales folks asked this particular transportation manager for this large manufacturer, he said, you know, "Why now?" He explained that one of the most valuable pieces of this, number one, their contracts with their retail stores, if they don't get the product to the shelf because it's products that we want as consumers today, when your washer and dryer breaks, you need one now. You need a refrigerator now, not next week. They have penalties in their contracts. If the truckload doesn't make it's a 10% penalty for the cost of the product, which is substantial.
That safety piece and reliability piece is important. This product was being 100% trucked from Mexico, and they were experiencing the cartels because when you get on the highway, that's where some of these activities take place. They're jeopardizing their reputation. You get on the rail, it's a different experience. The reliability of the supply chain, not just in transit, but equally as important, the security piece.
Mm-hmm.
It is a material difference. The issue is, if you have one manufacturer like that that starts to see the benefit and the reliability of this product we put in the marketplace, when one starts to win with it becomes competitive advantage, then their competitors wanna start to win with it as well. It's one of, I think, what will be many of this repatriating a business that's been 100% truck to railway because of this infrastructure we've created and this that's unique to us, and our value proposition.
One of the other challenges, as you well know, of course, is just the imbalance in the trade between the U.S. and Mexico. I think Americold ramping up Kansas City areas, that's, I think, gonna help offset some of that in terms of going south. Obviously, it's probably never gonna be fully balanced, but are there opportunities like that to kind of help the full fluidity of the network?
Yeah, that's always been kind of a challenge. There's, you know, you'd say there's four to one north versus going south on the rail, and that's not the case for us. Again, because of Americold's a piece of it. You know, that opened in August. That was a three-year journey. Took significant work and effort. It's came to fruition now. They've got the facility built on our land in Kansas City. We literally, probably last month and two weeks ago, we now have Mexican SENASICA inspectors that physically live in Kansas City working in our facility. They're inspecting and bonding, and then that border becomes seamless. That was a big step. That started at about 200 southbound loads.
Next month we're gonna be up to 600. Again, southbound offsetting that imbalance, and we still continue to win traffic on 180 and 181. Just last week, we got some business awarded. I think there's 2000 annual loads that are coming north, but we got another customer we've won that's equal that going south out of Chicago. Again, you've got a product that we're able to offset. We're not four to one, we're probably three to two.
Mm.
Again, that's part of our sales team's focus on what we can do to ideally get to one to one. You know, that's a perfect world. We won't get there, but it's compelling growth either way. It's something again that we're working hard to overcome and we're having a unique outcome because of the reliability of the service.
Well, you mentioned Americold being, you know, located on your line in the network in Kansas City. Are there any other co-location? I mean, we've heard about them over the years. They seem to come, like, once every two years or three years. But can that accelerate, or do these things really just take time to get the strategy and everything put together?
Yeah, no. That. There's been a move afoot since we announced the first one to look at the second one. Americold became a very strong partner for us strategically. They're focused on growth and differentiating the product in the marketplace. This is something unique where they've co-located inside our rail terminals and create the bookends. So we're very close to announcing a second location, down deeper in Mexico that's gonna serve the Mexico City market. Actually, they're in the process of building an Americold facility that's gonna be completed next month or the month after that's gonna come online in St. John.
Mm-hmm.
We've got a bookend now that's gonna bring water to the game and create this ecosystem that doesn't exist anywhere in North America that's very unique to Americold and CPKC. We'll continue to grow. They're looking at other opportunities as well. You know, we're gonna have Mexico penetration, we're gonna have Eastern Canada, and then next we're gonna start looking, and we've got a couple locations identified in Western Canada. Could be in Calgary, could be in Vancouver. It's a multi-year journey. There's much more growth still left to be achieved with those strategic partners.
Last, I think it was last Friday, STB unanimously rejected the petition for, I guess, further investigation into the Meridian Speedway, which we've talked about a little bit, you know, over the last year or so since that came into the headlines. I guess, what does that mean for you? Business as usual? Any impact on shippers? Anything else going forward?
Yeah, no. I think, number one, you know, that whole issue over the Meridian Speedway, it's a difference of operating philosophy. You know, I came to the table when we took control of the network, and actually, when the company was in trust, I took a train inspection trip. I was invited. I couldn't obviously provide any interference or any views, couldn't exert any control, but Pat invited me to participate in a train inspection trip over that speedway. The speedway, if you go back to when it was created, 2006 between NS and KCS, NS invested a significant amount of money to create a partnership. It's an LLC. They have 30% ownership. KCS had 70%. Now CPKC has 70%, but we operate it.
As a result of that investment, they're entitled. There's a commercial agreement to exclusivity and to certain service parameters on transit times that are defined in the contract. When I came, I took that trip. I saw a bunch of long trains running that weren't KCS trains that were congesting and impacting all the KCS trains. 'Cause essentially what happens, you've got a 300 mi stretch of railroad that's defined. There's three sidings that can handle a train over 8,500 ft. The people that made the agreement, the investment, the money that KCS spent allowed multiple sidings to be extended to run an 8,500 ft model. As PSR starts to evolve and people think they know how to implement PSR, KCS started down that path, and they think PSR is just run big trains.
Well, you gotta have the network built out to accommodate big trains, or you kinda give away inefficiencies and create delays, and it doesn't work. That's what I saw. I said, "Listen, the only people that are benefiting, it's the NS, it's not KCS. We're actually subsidizing their operations." When we took control, they were still doing the same thing. I said, "Guys, that's not good railroading. We're gonna run an 8,500 model, and everybody would get across the railroad better." We started down that journey. You know, Jim came back at UP, and Jim wanted us to work with him to run long one way. We agreed for a short period of time to run one long eastbound. Then we kinda fast-forwarded.
It was never a forever, and we had some other disputes and issues and concerns, and I said, "Listen, I'm not gonna continue to subsidize. So we're gonna go back to 8,500 ft." That's what we did. What we saw, what we realized, not a surprise to me, and when you run it the way it's designed to be ran, we started saving train delays, so everybody's trains got across the territory faster. That didn't fit UP's operating model. A dispute was created under the thought that we're not keeping our merger commitments, that we're affecting their service. It's an impacted gateway. We said, "Number one, it's not impacted because it's nothing new. It was here before. It's here after. It's not affected by the merger.
Number two, your service is good, if not better. You just need to measure it the right way." That dispute kind of rolled out. They filed with the STB. NS filed with the STB. We obviously stated our truth, the facts. Understanding the agreement, which is an agreement between NS and CPKC, not CPKC and UP. And ultimately, that's what it all boiled down to. The final ruling came out for the STB on Friday and essentially says there's no issue. Keep running it the way it is. It clarified the issue. What it says to me most importantly above and beyond all that is that in spite of what either party might like or want, the facts matter. In this regulatory body, as they review disputes, as they review this merger application, the facts are gonna matter.
In the end, that's gonna lead them to their conclusion and their decision. I couldn't ask or expect, nor could this industry ask for or expect any more than that. To have an independent agency that understands and will get into the facts, and they're doing their very best to protect our industry, which is what their mandate is, to do what's best overall, in spite of what any of the individual railroads may or want or not want, I think that's a good place to be. I was very pleased, not just because they agreed with us, but most importantly because it stated their independence, and it said again, "The facts are gonna matter in anything you put before us." I can't.
You know, in the history of our industry, what's before them now when UP/NS refiles their merger application is gonna be the most material important decision in our rail industry's history and in our nation's history when it comes to commerce and getting it right, and they know the gravity of that and the importance of that decision.
Definitely agree the facts will matter. Like you said, we'll see some more information here by the end of April. We also have some interpretations, you know, in some of the standards. If you think about truckload conversion, enhanced competition requirement, I don't. If you go back and look at the primary testimony from Linda Morgan, like, I don't think she would agree with truckload in increasing competition. Be curious to hear your take. We're gonna talk about that a lot more today in the panels. You know, can it really help a shipper who's going four to three or three to two?
Yeah, you know, I would agree with you. Linda Morgan is a very deep thinker. She was kind of the architect of the new merger rules. It was made to stop and pause consolidation. We consolidated enough in this industry, and essentially said, "If you're gonna do any more consolidating, it's gonna meet a very high standard. Only if it meets those standards of enhancing competition and serving the public interest will we approve a merger. If not, then you're either gonna be disapproved and/or they're gonna get concessions not of their choosing.
Mm-hmm.
That will help solve to what it would require to enhance competition and serve the public interest. You know, I've said all along, it's much deeper and much broader than just taking trucks off the road. It's about shippers' options. It's about customers' options. It is about three to twos. It's not just about two to ones. And in all honesty, when you think about enhancing competition, there's gonna be four to three concern. You get to a place where you're so consolidated where you only ultimately in the end, and they know this is true too, have healthy competition, it requires balance.
You know, if you get into the nuts and the bolts of BNSF when they merged and what kind of created the impetus and the need for UP, which was SP/UP, to exist to maintain balance in the West, same thing with the Conrail carve-up in the East.
Mm-hmm.
That doesn't change. You create this Goliath of UP/NS, which is gonna be, you know, 7x the size of CPKC. It's gonna serve 43 states, 40% of all the traffic in the nation. 40% of everything is a lot. From a GTM basis, RTM basis, in scale, CPKC were 5%. They would be 40% if it's approved. It's so consequential. It creates so much market power. You have to get it right. To compete against it, if they were to approve it, then those that are left, you've got to prepare yourself to compete as best as you can against that kind of size and scale. They know, just like I know, that will be, if they approve it, what likely triggers additional consolidation. That being said, they know that it's not just UP/NS.
They have to think long term 'cause it's a forever decision. The gravity of this is much more than just taking trucks off the road, and I think, you know, that was reiterated when they said the application was incomplete.
Mm-hmm.
It grossly fails in my view to address all of those concerns. This next application, you know, they're taking a lot of time to prepare it. I commend them for that because the gravity of it is that important, and I look forward to reading it. When they file it, I think they're planning to file it April 30. I said this last week in Chicago. I've got very strong views about it. I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's the right thing for the industry. I think it creates unhealthy imbalance that will drive additional consolidation. At what cost? Why do we need it? If I'm wrong, when I see the application, I'll be the first one to say I was wrong.
I just don't think knowing what I know about the industry and understanding the regulations the way I do, what they have to solve to, the marketing impact, the operational concerns, regardless of the market concerns as an operating officer, you know, something that big, if it gets in trouble, we all get in trouble. Those are all, to me, undeniable concerns that had to be addressed in that application. To Linda's words, the benefits are gonna have to outweigh the harms. The benefit box is gonna have to be fuller than the harm box, or you're never gonna satisfy a definition that says you're serving the public interest. That's the bottom line.
Mm-hmm.
Let's wait and see what it says, but it's a big hill to climb. It's a mountain. It's a Mt Everest as far as I'm concerned, and I just don't know that it's gonna be navigated.
One of the benefits, you know, whether or not it enhances competition, however that's defined, is clearly back to truckload conversion. When we look at some of the stats and what you guys reported for your targets, you know, quite a bit behind, at least for the time being, maybe you can talk about how that's progressing versus expectations. Clearly, a lot's changed since the merger.
Yeah.
When you look at what UP and NS is proposing, like it's another 2 million loads, and a lot of that's intermodal, and that's gonna be obviously a long-term strategy or effort. Seems like that's a pretty big lift. Can we really count on that being just overall, you know, in the benefit bucket when it's been just a very difficult thing to do, convert and keep it off the truck?
Yeah, I think it's. Again, I'm biased from my own experience over the last three years. We committed in our merger application that we saw an opportunity to take 64,000 trucks a year off the road, and it would take us about five years to get it done. Long story short, we're at about 40% of the rate now. Now listen, we've had headwind with the trucking rates have been down, capacity's been high. Some of that's getting corrected. The benefits we've had is we're talking about going over the border and the complexity of Mexico to the United States and making the border seamless and, you know, that's prime opportunity to me for road-to-rail conversion. 64,000 compared to almost 2 million. I mean, that's. I think I said this before. I kinda. Everything's relative.
I think about what that means. That's more than every intermodal load we moved in our entire network last year in growth. That's a lot, number one. That's a big number. Number two, if you're gonna get it, you're gonna have to reinvent yourself because the truckers aren't gonna roll over. Selling that kind of service is not the same as selling the railroad service that we have today. You've gotta have truck-like reliability. You've gotta have investment. You know, you think about Americold to get that balance. That Americold represents a three-year journey. It represented tons of work to get Mexican inspectors, get the processes changed with both governments, to get those people domiciled in the United States to create this ecosystem. Americold had to come to the table. I think they invested $127 million.
It took a while to build it. This stuff does not happen overnight, and certainly not in a three-year period. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm gonna take Jim at his word. I think it's a high aspirational target, and I think it's a lot more complicated, and it's gonna take a lot tougher sledding than he imagines or could imagine. I know that's true about me. How can it not be true about that? I think the regulator understands that. You know, again, if you go back to what Linda Morgan says, the representations you make about all these merger benefits, they're gonna look at them in a very skeptical way, as they should, because historically, it's easy to say all these wonderful things, and it's the shiniest, newest toy, and it's got all these benefits.
What you say and what you do and what you commit is history says is different. In this case, they're gonna be very much more skeptical. They're gonna poke holes in it. Once they submit their application, I hope it's very much more definitive and robust about how they got to those numbers and why they believe that to be true, so that the STB can say, you know, "Is it 2 million or is it 1 million?" They're gonna hedge it themselves. I'm not gonna speak for them. You can look at our story and our history, and I think we've got a pretty good track record of doing what we say we're gonna do, and it's not been easy. We're getting there.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we're at 40% in the ecosystem, and it's gonna grow more, and we'll be in a much better position this time next year. You know, that journey with Americold specifically started five years ago. To say you're gonna get all that done in three years, I think it should be looked at with skepticism.
Maybe we'll come back and finish up with something more CPKC specific. I mean, I think this time last year, we were talking about the land bridge and talking about shipping French fries to Mexico from Canada. Clearly, lots has happened since then, and the pipeline's grown, you know, pretty substantially. Maybe we can wrap up with that land bridge, the opportunity and sort of the pipeline that you see because, you know, trade uncertainty is gonna be there. Like you said, opportunities, you gotta go out and get them. Clearly, it seems like there's been a few that's fallen in your lane.
Yes. Brian, that's a great point. With every crisis comes opportunity, and this whole trade tribulation issue has really created an awareness in Canada and Mexico to diversify markets. Again, we come to the table helping them do that. Whether it's french fries that are coming out of Alberta that are going to Mexico that in the past may have shipped by truck and have been shipped by truck, they're coming to rail now. We've got the ecosystem with Americold, with the facilities being built now to be able to be that modal conversion. That's all stuff that's starting to grow with us. It's really exciting. Petroleum products, grain products. You know, I think to 2024, traffic between Mexico and Canada was maybe 2% of our revenue.
Now we're north of 3%. I think it's almost a $0.5 billion over the last two years of new incremental revenue, and we see another $100 million this year. This unique network has enabled that. Now that you have people paying attention to it, and it's part of their planning and part of their supply chains, it's something that will continue to grow for us that we've uniquely enabled that we're excited to participate in.
Okay. Well, we're a little bit over time, so we're gonna have to end it there. Thanks a lot, Keith, Chris, for being here today.