Historically speaking , VRS ran this line with no southern connection to Guilford for a lonnng time. if you research things you would find that the ownership and operation of the line between n bennington and hoosick falls has been very interesting. I believe that today vtr or the state of vt actually owns and operates/dispatches that track now.
In any case,most of todays customers were there in the no southern connection days. The biggest change that has happened is that the state of vermont in the slightly wishful thinking anticipation of a Green mountain flyer like passenger service to NYC mainly in western vt and not in new york , spent a small fortune installing 127 pound welded rail, ties and ballast from manchester to hoosick ny. I'm not good with dates but that was in the last 15 years. in the mean time, the vtr has installed a variety of wood, stone, and rail between manchester and rutland. And thanks to irene, they have also replaced some bridges in the past few years. It's not the tokaido line by any means but vtr can get over it pretty easily at a pretty good clip, (i'm guessing at least 20 to 30) south of manchester. In the early 80s the track was very poor barely if class 1, but not so today. the proof of the pudding is the current use of six axle power on the B&R. in 1985 that kind of power would have spent more time on the ground than on the rail. I'm not clear how good it is north of manchester but it's got to be at least class 1 or 10 mph for the propane traffic.
so where will those cars come from with no PAuSe in hoosick? well i think that a bunch of them already come in from the d&H via whitehall and i'm guessing that the lingering pases will meander from bellows falls.