by Lloyd's List

2 April 2025 (Lloyd's List) - APM Terminals has acquired the Panama Canal Railway Corporation from the Canadian Pacific Kansas City and the Lanco Group/Mi-Jack.

The 76 km railway runs between Panama’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts and generated $77m worth of revenue in 2024.

APM Terminals chief executive Keith Svendsen said PCRC “represents an attractive infrastructure investment in the region aligned to our core services of intermodal container movement”.

“The company is highly regarded for its operational excellence and will provide a significant opportunity for us to offer a broader range of services to the global shipping customers we serve”.

Lanco Group/Mi-Jack CEO Mike Lanigan said his company was “proud” to have worked with Maersk over several years.

“As we all know, Panama is a major transport hub, and I am quite confident the container business will continue to grow under the leadership of APM Terminals,” he said.

The Panama Canal Railway is an important component of the country’s cross-isthmus transport system, which is about more than the canal.

In addition to transiting the waterway, containerships drop off transhipment cargo at hubs on either coast. The railway connects the Pacific hub of Balboa to the Atlantic hubs of MIT, Colon Container Terminal and Cristobal (the other transhipment hub on the Pacific coast, PSA-Panama, is on the opposite side of the canal to the railway).

The railway operates parallel to the canal, serving as a conveyor belt that moves cargo unloaded on the Pacific side to the Atlantic ports, and vice versa. Rail transhipment is complemented by cross-isthmus trucking moves, particularly from PSA-Panama.

Rail and trucking have always played an important role in Panama’s transport system connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but the railway became particularly important during the 2023-2024 drought.

Draught restrictions at the canal limited the volume of Asian cargo that could be loaded on larger containerships headed to US ports. As a result, vessels unloaded some of their cargo in Balboa, used the rail to move it to one of the Atlantic hubs, then reloaded railed cargo on to the ships.

Maersk, the owner of APM Terminals, was a major proponent of this “land bridge” concept during the recent drought.

Two of the ports served by the railway, Balboa and Cristobal, are at the centre of the current geopolitical storm involving US allegations of Chinese “control” of the canal.

Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports has agreed to sell its non-Chinese ports, including Balboa and Cristobal, to a consortium including Blackstone and Mediterranean Shipping Co’s port division. The signing of that deal has been delayed following pushback from the Chinese government.