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This week, Burlington Northern Santa Fe opened the $60 million "Argentine Connection" flyover bridge on its Chicago-to-southern California Transcon route in Kansas City, Kan.

The bridge grade separates two BNSF routes that intersect near the Missouri and Kansas state lines, and passes over Union Pacific Railroad's rehabilitated High Line bridge, creating three levels of track.

The Argentine Connection — which stretches two miles from a Kansas City Terminal Railway Co. (KCT) mainline to BNSF's Argentine Yard in Kansas City, Kan. — elevates the east-west Transcon route over a north-south line and eliminates at-grade crossings. The bridge will enable 135 or more daily intermodal, coal, grain and general merchandise trains to pass over each other without traffic conflicts.

The flyover was developed through a public-private partnership between BNSF, KCT, the state of Missouri and unified government of Kansas City. To fund the two-year project, the parties formed corporations similar to one used to finance the Sheffield Flyover — Kansas City's largest rail bridge — which opened in July 2000.

Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission and KCT created Westside Intermodal Transportation Corp. to issue industrial revenue bonds to fund the project's Missouri end; the unified government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., issued industrial revenue bonds to finance the Kansas portion.