For sure it will, just not in a rush. Puts Pleasant River in an awkward situation with their new facility at Enfield, wonder how much appetite CSX will have to run up there for 4 cars but I'm sure they'll play ball or come up with a creative solution. Honestly I could see Irving taking over the line down to Old Town or even NMJ someday, handling local traffic and handing it off to CSX or CP.
The comment on majority of Irving traffic going to NY is a huge mis-categorization. First off, they produce a variety of products from Lumber, to pulp, paper, tissue, ect. Each market is different. Lumber sticks around mostly locally although it can go to Toronto and the Midwest, every now and again some loads make it far west. Paper and pulp goes all over the place, their pulp is the northern blends of NBHK and NBSK, which they have either contract or spot market sales. Some goes to their plant in Georgia, while the rest can go anywhere and everywhere. Paper will go to Toronto, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Chicago, Minnesota/Wisconsin in particular, Texas, California, Mexico to name a few major points. You can see Irving cars all over the continent especially now that they've beefed up their 50'HC fleet.
Everyone also seems to forget that when 142 hits Maine, it's already made setoffs at Farnham and Sherbrooke. Tafisa is growing so is Logibel at Megantic (ironic). Tafisa has switched almost fully to 60' cars now that CP is in town and has stock, dumping the old junky 50' MMA/IANR cars. Logibel does a lot of lumber transload from the area, but also some steel and others. Sherbrooke is the SLR interchange, EKA, and other local traffic. Farnham has LPG, VTR, and other local traffic.
Other developments NOT covered thus far here is the inbound pulp traffic from Domtar and other upper Superior producers into the market via CP (look for the 50' CP vented cars). They come into Irving as well as Pixelle in Jay. CP ripped up half the farm, rumor is they are looking to plant a major LPG terminal there. Lanes built out 16 car spots for Asphalt (no moves have occurred yet) and they take Cement. GAC is actually taking loads of Slurry inbound from places as far as Arkansas, to be remixed and reshipped (not sure if they ship or rail). CP asked MaineDOT to design (not build but design) a loop at Searsport for unit train operations. That's a back burner project for sure but the St Lawrence seaway does freeze up each winter and Thunder Bay closes to shipping.
I don't think CP has any regret in purchasing this line, their last call they said they've already doubled the revenue on CMQ, which was basically stabilized around $40M per year.
Oh and lastly, for those interested in the 'little' intermodal facility at Saint John as below. I can tell you having worked at a few Class I facilities, a Greenfield site offers way more efficiencies than tearing up a few yard tracks in the middle of an existing terminal and calling that an intermodal facility.
https://pub-saintjohn.escribemeetings.c ... entId=8150