Border Lines

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 6/1/1998

* How much trouble was caused by the Union Pacific's recent embargo on rail traffic to Mexico through Laredo? Not as much as one would suppose, says Laura Garza, regional vice president, Laredo-Mexico for Alliance Shippers Inc., one of the region's largest intermodal marketing companies (IMCs). Alliance and many of its competitors used their truck-brokerage operations to move new shipments over the road as well as to transload cargo that was stuck on the railroad. Although delivery of freight already on the rails was delayed, "the bottom line is that the embargo did not affect our business," Garza says. "UP's not allowing its equipment to cross was not going to stop trade between the two countries."