Company and operates as the Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge, a joint venture of the Union Pacific and the Mexican government. 20th century The Mexican government controlled the Tex-Mex from 1900 to 1982, when privatization made it part of Grupo TFM. The railway became on July 17, 1902. In 1906 it bought the Texas Mexican Northern Railway, and in 1930, the San Diego and Gulf Railway. Ordered on April 22, 1938, seven Whitcomb Locomotive Works diesel locomotives were delivered between August and November of 1939. While some steam locomotives were kept until 1946 or 1947, they were almost never used, and the Tex-Mex is considered to be the first railway in the world to dieselize. They also began operating a government railroad from Corpus Christi to a naval air station in 1940. In 1995, the expanding KCS bought 49 percent of Tex-Mex, and in 1997, the Surface Transportation Board granted trackage rights to the Tex-Mex to connect to the KCS at Beaumont, Texas. Responding to increased international trade between the US and Mexico, the railroad built a large railroad yard and intermodal freight transport facility at Laredo in 1998. They also won Regional Railroad of the Year that same year. 21st century In 2002, however, both companies sold their shares to Grupo Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana. In August 2004, KCS again purchased a controlling interest in Tex-Mex, although they were held by a trust company until the Surface Transportation Board approved the move for January 2005. In 1996 Tex-Mex bought a 90 miles segment of unused/abandoned Southern Pacific trackage from Rosenberg to Victoria, TX. The line was dormant and unused by the TM until 2006 when they announced they would rebuild the line to avoid continued running on a circuitous Union Pacific route from Houston via Flatonia to Victoria. In June 2009, Tex-Mex began operating on new trackage between Victoria and Rosenberg, Texas, known as the Macaroni Line. The line was built in 1882 and was called the Macaroni Line because the main food for the workers constructing the line was macaroni. In 1885, it was acquired by Southern Pacific, which operated the 91-mile line until 1985: by the early 1990s, the tracks were mostly worn out. In 2006, KCS and Tex-Mex announced they would rebuild the Macaroni Line, to end the need for trackage rights on a circuitous Union Pacific route. Construction began in January 2009 and the line opened