I believe Glovis exports autos via the Halifax/CN Autoport on the Dartmouth side of things. If CP is to pickup 100% of the Glovis contract as they claim, it wouldn't surprise me part of this acquisition is to satisfy that requirement through auto exports in Searsport. I've heard Glovis comes online in Jan but is fully onboarded by September, 2020... so some work yet to be done.
Potash is coming for sure (plan is Saint John but we'll see if a second option develops), things are already in motion on that too. The intermodal piece also begs the question, will CP build a ramp in Saint John and provide some $$ to get the Irving line up to snuff? A lot of this plan does seem to ride on the Irving group playing ball, but I suspect again, there must be a compelling reason, such as auto and other exports via Searsport, that give you a scenario in case the Irving bet doesn't come out as fruitful.
But, end of day.... look--- CP had to do something. CN literally tried to buy Halifax, then says screw it we'll build our own mega port in Quebec City. They're throwing cash at East Coast projects all over the place and CP is stuck with two ports both located hundreds of miles inland up rivers. Hard to keep up with competition when you're geographically challenged on the Atlantic side of the equation, so CP's move is almost a forced hand in a few regards.
For more on auto exports see here about Autoport in Halifax. Really not hard to imagine Searsport with a similar setup... just a lot of parking lots need to be setup first:
https://www.portofhalifax.ca/facilities ... /autoport/