CN9634 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 7:36 am
Last item-- all the mill investment in Maine. Effectively you create a direct ST interchange at NMJ, instead of a ST-PAS routing. Now all the paper and pulp carloads can route around PAS, or CSX, or NS, to reach the midwest. Heck, you can see ST-CP-BNSF/UP routings come out of the woodwork and really put a beating on the PAS gateway traffic.
I'd be surprised to see a major shift in Maine's pulp, paper and forest products traffic routing and market share, particularly PAR originated or overhead traffic. In fact, they could stand to gain a little traffic if CP shows no interest in the short-haul Newport gateway for overhead or their own originated traffic. CP will hold the weaker position as an overhead carrier against PAR-originated traffic and/or NS or CSX-terminated traffic which represents a good portion of this market. In these cases, it's doubtful PAR will short-haul themselves to CP or that CSX or NS would allow themselves to be short-hauled with CP in the routing.