WASHINGTON — Canadian Pacific Kansas City’s local service in former Kansas City Southern territory, which faltered after a May 3 computer system cutover, improved considerably last week.
First- and last-mile performance now stands at or above 80% on three of the four operating divisions that include portions of the former KCS, CPKC told the Surface Transportation Board in an update yesterday (June 25, 2025). Two of the divisions — Shreveport and Southeast — were at or below 60% for local service in the prior week.
Regulators last week required CPKC to file a service action plan in response to the congestion, delays, and missed switches that mounted in Louisiana, east Texas, and Mississippi after the CP operating system replaced the old KCS system.
The local service metrics on all four divisions — as well as on CPKC systemwide in the U.S. — now stands above the 76% service action plan trigger, the railway says.
CPKC said that the on-time performance of its manifest trains has been relatively flat over the past few weeks and remains below the railway’s standards, at 55.8%, after slipping last week.
“The lagging improvement in Manifest OTP performance is not entirely unexpected,” the railway said. “This metric was anticipated to improve more gradually than other indicators of network health, in part because of the time needed for CPKC to work through the consequences of the congestion triggered by the data issues.”
With the number of cars online continuing to fall, CPKC has lifted customer facility embargoes that were imposed to prevent congestion from worsening.
“CPKC is continuing to devote the resources and attention necessary to return service levels to the normal range expeditiously,” the railway told the board.
Senior operating officials remain stationed in KCS yards in Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas; Shreveport, La.; and Jackson, Miss., to support “continued catchup needed to bring network fluidity back to normal levels,” the railway said.
Information technology personnel also remain on site at former KCS locations and customer facilities to assist with the new system and processes, with a focus on the Southeast Division that includes former KCS lines east and southeast of Shreveport.
CPKC also says it will provide more frequent customer updates and seek feedback from customers in order to help speed recovery efforts.
“CPKC continues to project that it will achieve a return of service performance to the normal range for the vast majority of customers by the second half of July,” the railway said.
