This is a continuation of Reunited and It Feels So Wood(en)
Satisfied with my hour in Napinka, I headed toward the nearby town of Melita for a late lunch. The town has two elevators, but I gave them cursory attention because I was hungry.
Sadly, there was no food in Melita for this celiac guy. The restaurants on Main Street had all closed up, and the only real restaurant I could see was the Chicken Chef, all deep fried food and not gluten friendly at all. What to do?
Eventually I gave up and went to a local gas station and bought a couple of meat sticks, some cheese and a bag of tortilla chips. It filled the void.
On to Cameron and Lyleton.
Elva
On the way to Cameron, I spotted a pair of CPKC locomotives sitting at the Cargill elevator outside Elva.
I don’t think anyone was in the locomotives, and it didn’t look like any work was being done. I imagine they spotted the cars for loading then went off shift. I wonder if this is common practice here. The elevator has (had?) its own locomotive, CRGX 573, but I didn’t see it.
I didn’t bother going into the town of Elva, because both of its elevators are gone. The oldest elevator in the province was destroyed by fire while it was being dismantled, and the ex UGG elevator was dismantled for wood.
Cameron
The elevator at Cameron sits alone in a field. It is prominently marked for Five Roses Flour, a brand of the Lake of the Woods Milling Company that owned this elevator. The driveway collapsed years ago and I imagine it’s a matter of time before it comes down.
As you can see, there are lots of oil pumpjacks in the southwest corner of the province. The frackin’ Bakken oil fields are under Manitoba, Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan.
Lyleton
The third elevator that I wanted to get was at Lyleton.
Its cupola has been leaning for years, and people have been saying that it may be demolished soon, so I had to go see it again. I arrived at about 2 PM.
While I was photographing the elevator, a gentleman named John struck up a conversation. He owns the former John Deere garage in town and had a few stories to tell.
I put my drone up here to get a closer look at the elevator.
You can see how the cupola is twisting around. It’s one good wind storm away from coming off.
Don’t stand too close to that elevator.
Interrupted
I had intended to head east from Lyleton, passing through Coulter, Dalny, Deloraine, Killarney, Baldur, Mariapolis and so on, but a phone call from work aborted that plan. Oh well.
After that was wrapped up, I decided to head north to Virden and take the Trans-Canada Highway home instead.
Of course, I made a few stops along the way.
Tilston
I dropped into one of my favourite Manitoba grain elevator towns, Tilston, at around 5 PM.
Tilston has two grain elevators – one featuring a prominent Manitoba Pool roundel. The town has been cleaned up since my last visit in 2019 – several old buildings have been demolished. The old school is still there but the former train station’s shell is gone.
Tilston was on the CP Alida subdivision, removed around 1978.
It was a beautiful evening for flying my drone, so I took my time to get a few different angles. When I was here in 2019, it was very windy so I only flew my drone for a few minutes.
It’s always good to get back to Tilston.
Pipestone
The town of Pipestone has no railway tracks, but this milepost still stands next to the former CP right-of-way. The track of the CP Arcola subdivision was removed around 2017 but I guess they missed this sign.
Alexander
I exited the Trans-Canada Highway at Alexander to photograph their grain elevator, owned by G3, still in operation and receiving rail cars. There was lots of activity on their main street, good to see.
Austin
One more “A” town, Austin, at last light at 8 PM. No trains and their grain elevator is not looking great. Let’s hope it hangs around for a few more years.
Statistics
- 887 km driven
- 16 hours away from home
- 373 photographs kept
- 27 grain elevators photographed
- 1 good time
Good post! Nice photos. Keep an eye on the twisted one!
Steve, what replaces these crumbling elevators? Presumably farmers are still growing the same amounts of grain. How do they get it to market? What determines the replacement decision? Does any of this apparent deterioration have to do with the end if the Wheat Board? It all seems sad.
Good questions, David. The farmers still need to store grain. Farms have grown larger and they have some storage of their own in bins on the farm, but in general they truck it farther to large concrete grain terminals. These “Prairie Death Stars” have enormous capacities, equal to numerous old wooden grain elevators.
A combination of factors led to the demise of the wooden elevator system. Abandonment of little-used branch lines doomed many elevators, the repeal of the Crow Rate led to higher shipping costs, and the railways’ determination to ship grain in blocks of 25, 50, 100 or more cars led to these huge terminals. Everything in farming is much bigger today.
The train that passed me at Napinka ended up parked like that, probably waiting for the cars to be loaded. While the crew takes a break in Melita. There Friday Morning, Saturday and it is gone, thinking they only filled half of the cars, as the train was split in about half when I saw it there.