Kansas City metropolitan area

The Kansas City metropolitan area is a 14-county metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri that straddles the border between the U.S. states of Missouri and Kansas. With a population of 2,393,623, it ranks as the second largest metropolitan area with its core in Missouri (after Greater St. Louis) and has a population in Kansas larger than the Wichita metropolitan area. Alongside Kansas City, the area includes a number of other cities and suburbs, the largest being Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; and Independence, Missouri; all over 100,000 in population.The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) serves as the Council of Governments and the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the area.

Geographic overview

The larger Kansas City Metropolitan Area as seen on a map can be visualized roughly as four quadrants:

The northeast quadrant of the map is locally referred to as "north of the river" or "the Northland". It includes parts of Clay County, Missouri including North Kansas City, Missouri. North Kansas City is bounded by a bend in the Missouri River that defines a border between Wyandotte County, Kansas and Clay County, Missouri running approximately North-South and a border between North Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Missouri running approximately East-West. The sharpest part of the river bend forms a peninsula containing the Kansas City Downtown Airport.

Kansas

Kansas ⁱ/ˈkænzəs/ is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind", although this was probably not the term's original meaning. Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans". For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison. Kansas was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue.

When it was officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri rushed to the territory to determine whether Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided, and was known as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually prevailed, and on January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state. After the Civil War, the population of Kansas grew rapidly when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into farmland. Today, Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, corn, sorghum, and soybeans. Kansas is the 15th most extensive and the 34th most populous of the 50 United States.

Kansas City Southern (company)

Kansas City Southern is the parent company of the Kansas City Southern Railway, a Class I railroad headquartered in the Quality Hill neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri, USA. It is also sometimes known as "The NAFTA Railroad" in reference to the North American Free Trade Agreement because its operations carry goods between the midwest and Mexico.

Kansas City Southern was founded in 1887 by Arthur Edward Stilwell, with the goal of connecting the U.S. heartland to the Gulf of Mexico. An early slogan for the company was "The shortest route from Kansas City to salt water." Its original network linked Kansas City with Port Arthur, Texas. Although it remained financially strong, it did not add routes until the 1930s, when it expanded to Louisiana. From 1940 to 1969, KCS offered luxury passenger service between Kansas City and New Orleans, but ceased passenger operations due to the growing popularity of auto and air travel.

KCS' next large expansion did not take place until 1993, when it purchased the MidSouth Railroad, which provided its first east-west route, connecting Dallas, Texas to Meridian, Mississippi.

Rail freight transport

Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.

A freight train or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (UIC) hauled by one or more locomotives on a railway, transporting cargo all or some of the way between the shipper and the intended destination as part of the logistics chain. Trains may haul bulk material, intermodal containers, general freight or specialized freight in purpose-designed cars. Rail freight practices and economics vary by country and region.

When considered in terms of ton-miles or tonne-kilometers hauled per unit of energy consumed, rail transport can be more efficient than other means of transportation. Maximum economies are typically realized with bulk commodities (e.g., coal), especially when hauled over long distances. However, shipment by rail is not as flexible as by highway, which has resulted in much freight being hauled by truck, even over long distances. Moving goods by rail often involves transshipment costs, particularly when the shipper or receiver lack direct rail access. These costs may exceed that of operating the train itself, a factor that practices such as containerization aim to minimize.

Cargo

The word cargo refers in particular to goods or produce being conveyed – generally for commercial gain – by ship, boat, or aircraft, although the term is now often extended to cover all types of freight, including that carried by train, van, truck, or intermodal container. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facility.

Multi-modal container units, designed as reusable carriers to facilitate unit load handling of the goods contained, are also referred to as cargo, specially by shipping lines and logistics operators. Similarly, aircraft ULD boxes are also documented as cargo, with associated packing list of the items contained within. When empty containers are shipped each unit is documented as a cargo and when goods are stored within, the contents are termed as containerised cargo.

Transportation types

Marine

Seaport terminals handle a wide range of maritime cargo.