John,
Thanks for the great and detailed overview of the cars moving south from NBSR/MNR mostly but also CMQ to CSX via the WACR and NECR. it is interesting to see the new loads from Woodland and the new destinations (e.g. Guilderland, NY).
I thought I would just add some general overview of traffic that moves north and south on the WACR, mostly based on trains that I have observed along the WACR over the last few years, including the last few years of MMA and first year and a half of CMQ.
Traffic to WACR customers: Almost all arrives at White River Junction via the NECR, either from CSX at Palmer or CN at St. Albans. This includes grain for Morrison's, barley malt for CTI, calcium chloride, fertilizer, fuel oil, wood pulp. Very little of this traffic arrives at Newport via the CMQ (occasional loads of fertilizer for Northeast Ag and grain for Morrison's Feeds). Only rarely do loads of wood pulp or grain come via the CP at Whitehall, although the road salt does in the winter.
Traffic to CMQ customers in Newport/Richford: This arrives from both the north (CMQ) and the south (WACR). CMQ brings grain, propane, and plastic pellets south from Farnham; and WACR brings grain north from White River Junction, primarily via NECR from CSX in Palmer.
Overhead traffic moving north from WACR to CMQ: In MMA days, WACR brought a lot of containerboard north to Newport for delivery to St. Jean (a CP customer there switched by MMA). Now they bring plastic pellets north for unloading in Farnham, occasional logs for unloading in Megantic, occasional fertilizer for forwarding to MNR customers in Maine, and seasonal road salt for unloading on the SLR in New Hampshire.
Overhead traffic moving south from CMQ to WACR: As in MMA days, the biggest movements are of lumber and paper (mostly off MNR), wood pulp (mostly from NBSR), particleboard (mostly from Tafisa on CMQ), and sodium chlorate (from Magog on CMQ). In the last 2-3 months, lumber, paper, and sodium chlorate have all dropped precipitously. I don't know if that is a seasonal thing or, as some have suggested, a diversion of traffic to CP. Most of these southbound loads go to NECR (paper, wood pulp, lumber), MCER, (paper), P&W (particleboard), and CSX (all of the above, except paper). Based on my observations, very little if any of the southbound loads have moved via the WACR to NS; those have always moved via either CP or PAR.
As has been noted earlier, interchange traffic from CMQ to WACR has dropped off dramatically during the first quarter of 2016 after rising sharply in the last half of 2015 (probably peaking at about 80 cars per week in late 2015. Now interchange is down to about 40 cars per week (this is both northbound and southbound), half what it was a few months back. Certainly CMQ deliveries have never reached the levels stated (I hesitate to use the word "promised") by CMQ.
Anyhow I hope this long discourse adds to the great information that John provided earlier and helps explain the traffic situation along the WACR and CMQ Newport Subdivision.
Best,
Fritz