Railroad Forums 

  • Woodland Pulp LLC/St Croix Tissue

  • Discussion of present-day CM&Q operations, as well as discussion of predecessors Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA) and Bangor & Aroostook Railroad (BAR).
Discussion of present-day CM&Q operations, as well as discussion of predecessors Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA) and Bangor & Aroostook Railroad (BAR).

Moderator: MEC407

 #1497627  by carchecker
 
I was told by a NBSR employee that they will be hauling tissue from the mill in Baileyville shortly. Apparently in order to secure the deal Irving is going to buy wdpulp from Woodland Pulp LLC to ship to their new tissue plant in Georgia. CMQ had put in a bid to ship tissue by truck to a CMQ transload facility and they would transport it from there. Is there anyone out there "in the know" about this or is it pure rumour and speculation?
 #1498389  by JB283
 
I'm guessing PAR to NS or CSX which would not have to change hands again depending on who has track access at the end point. If I was a betting man i would say CSX.
 #1502688  by gokeefe
 
I'm fascinated by the idea that the wood supply is so vast out there that they can support this expansion. Not surprising given Lincoln's closure perhaps ...

I guess this could also just be use of excess pulp supply.
 #1502707  by Cowford
 
I was told by a NBSR employee that they will be hauling tissue from the mill in Baileyville shortly. Apparently in order to secure the deal Irving is going to buy wdpulp from Woodland Pulp LLC to ship to their new tissue plant in Georgia. CMQ had put in a bid to ship tissue by truck to a CMQ transload facility and they would transport it from there.
I don't quite get how Irving is part of this deal with Woodland Pulp. So pulp is going to move from Baileyville to Irving's new tissue mill in Macon, GA? Where will Woodland Pulp will be shipping tissue?
 #1503227  by carchecker
 
It doesn't sound like the tissue will begin moving until this summer. Woodpulp has already been moving quite a bit and the Baileyville mill has just said they plan to ship over 100 more carloads between now and the end of the month.
 #1503310  by gokeefe
 
That is a major increase in rail car volume for that mill. If the destination is Macon, GA, Pan Am is almost certainly one of the carriers ... If so that also implies significant new volume for MAWA/WAMA or whatever the Mattawamkeag job is these days.
 #1503324  by CN9634
 
gokeefe wrote:That is a major increase in rail car volume for that mill. If the destination is Macon, GA, Pan Am is almost certainly one of the carriers ... If so that also implies significant new volume for MAWA/WAMA or whatever the Mattawamkeag job is these days.

50 carloads a week if that holds true... so 7ish carloads per 7 day week, say 10 per business day. Surely a nice contribution but let’s not over hype here. A major increase would be an entire trainload not carloads in the eyes of the induatry.
 #1503336  by roberttosh
 
Not many opportunities up that way where you're realistically going to add entire trainloads of new business. If the Keag job runs 3 days per week, this amounts to an additional 15-20 cars per train, which in the grand scheme of things sure seems pretty significant to me.
 #1503741  by oibu
 
Yes, even "back in the good old days" very few individual mills ever supported their own full train other than whatever local(s) served them.

10 cars a day of outbound finished product is a pretty substantial volume, probably roughly on par with what Woodland was shipping (again in terms of outbound finished product) back in the 70s or so.
 #1503764  by CN9634
 
oibu wrote:Yes, even "back in the good old days" very few individual mills ever supported their own full train other than whatever local(s) served them.

10 cars a day of outbound finished product is a pretty substantial volume, probably roughly on par with what Woodland was shipping (again in terms of outbound finished product) back in the 70s or so.
Their footprint now compared to what it was is substantially different. Remember they put in new tissue machines and bolstered the pulp capacity, so in terms of railable quantities there is a lot more that could go for certain, but majority ships breakbulk via Eastport to overseas markets as of today.

A lot of mills produce trainloads when you consider the balance of inbound raw material to outbound product, examples are Sappi , Verso / ND paper. The Irving traffic is split between CMQ, ST and CN, so you'll sometimes see large bursts go either direct but nothing cohesively on just one line. Twin Rivers ships most outbound via CMQ, but inbound materials comes in through CN and their pulp side is in Canada connected via pipeline to the US paper side (an interesting setup).

The wildcard out there is Lake Utopia who ships a lot of transload / intermodal off CN in NB, but has no direct rail access.