Back in August 2014 I took two days (Aug 8-9) to photograph every grain elevator in southwest Manitoba. I’ve moved this post from my old blog to restore the photos and bring it “back to the light”. Here’s part 1 and part 2 and part 3 and part 4 and part 5.
I arose bright and early on the morning of August 9, 2014 to continue photographing Manitoba’s grain elevators. I left Melita and headed due east to Medora to photograph its remaining elevator.
Medora
This tiny town has one remaining grain elevator, an ex United Grain Growers (UGG) elevator.
The light blue lettering and roof is a give-away that it was UGG.
The other giveaway is the faded UGG logo on the side of the weathered wooden structure.
Under the UGG logo is a Sherritt logo. I’m not sure what this structure used to be but it sure has some nice weathering.
The elevator appears to be privately owned and in operation.
Next I headed to…
Napinka
The town of Napinka, namesake for the CP Napinka subdivision, has two grain elevators. The left elevator is the former Pool “A” elevator and the right (an ex Ogilvie elevator) is the former Pool “B” elevator. The very end of the Napinka subdivision is visible between the horses and the elevators. There used to be a wye here with the CP Estevan subdivision but the west leg was removed some time ago.
Here’s the former Pool “A” elevator.
The former Pool “B” elevator is an ex Ogilvie grain elevator.
The “POOL B” is faded on this side but more pronounced on the other side.
Those SOO hoppers are pretty beat up!
For more on Napinka, see my 2025 visit to the town.
After that, it was off to one of my favourite towns from this trip, Tilston.
However, I’m going to skip over that town for now and come back to it in the next post. I think it’s worthy of its own post.
After leaving Tilston, I came across a crop duster doing passes over some sunflower fields. It was quite interesting!
This was C-GYGV, a Cessna A188B built in 1975. The A188 was a purpose-built agricultural aircraft. Almost 4000 of these were built. You can see a video of an A188B planting rice to give you an idea of how low they fly.
With my telephoto lens (and a bit of driving to get in the right place) I was able to get some decent shots of the plane.
I left the wire in the shot to show how low the plane was flying. They have to fly low to minimize dispersion of the product. These pilots are highly skilled and I admire their work.
It was fun to watch them work but I had grain elevators to photograph! On to…
Sinclair
Sinclair, Manitoba has a single grain elevator, the former Manitoba Pool elevator.
I don’t think it is in service any more. The siding is certainly overgrown and in fact the vast majority of the CP Arcola subdivision is slated for abandonment.
The rails are starting to grow rusty.
I was surprised to see an open convenience store in Sinclair, Wiebe’s Corner Store. It was well stocked inside and I had a good chat with the owner, who graciously allowed me to take a photograph inside.
The store features a gift shop, the local post office, a Sears catalogue outlet and is a one-stop shop for the town. I assembled an impromptu lunch from the store to take with me. At this time it was 10:20 AM.
The Sinclair grain elevator was severely damaged by wind storms in 2023 and 2024, and was demolished.
After leaving Sinclair, I headed over to:
Reston
The town of Reston’s single grain elevator is now privately owned, by the Elliott Brothers.
I drove around the town to photograph the elevator from all sides.
This side is the most interesting to me.. not for the elevator but for what is in the foreground.
Check out that trailer!
What the heck is a Texas Mexican Railway trailer doing in a small town in Manitoba??
As I drove around the elevator, I stumbled across this little gem that I would have otherwise totally missed.
This is a 4-stall CPR roundhouse, built in 1906. I didn’t approach closer as it is clearly on private property and possibly owned by Gray’s Transfer. There is a sign on Highway 252 pointing to it, so perhaps access can be arranged. I decided on a Sunday morning that there was little chance of that, so I took my photos from the road and carried on.
As I mentioned earlier, the next post will be all about the town of Tilston, Manitoba. Read on!
PS Bill Hooper has some great photos of Reston in his Flickr stream from the late 1950s. Check them out! I love the second photo of CPR’s homemade weed killer train.
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