In Search of Elevators

I woke up fairly early on August 12. I hit the road, heading west from Chaplin Saskatchewan to photograph the grain elevators in Morse and Herbert, and especially the GM lease unit at the Reed Lake inland terminal.

The first town west of Chaplin is tiny Ernfold, and there was a westbound potash train in the siding. Just as I stopped, an eastbound freight rumbled past.

This train had CP 8621, CP 9509, and CP 8564.

After shooting CP 9584 at the tail end of the potash train, I drove up toward the head end. While I did this, another eastbound rolled past the stopped potash train. I missed the head end! I settled for a few shots of CP 9588 and 9675 at the head end while the grain train went by.

Once the grain train passed, CP 9588 West turned their headlights on and prepared to roll out. I hit the road and set up at the next town, Morse, to await their arrival.


Once the train passed, I continued on to Herbert to shoot the elevator and train museum there. I'll talk about the train museum later.


I headed back toward Chaplin. As I passed Morse, I saw a westbound container train in the distance. I did a quick turn and headed back to Morse to get the train with the grain elevators.

CP 8738 and 8711, both GEVO units, provided the power. I recall it was raining fairly steadily, so I shot from under the van's tailgate.


Lest I forget, I should post a photo of the main reason I went out, GATX lease unit GMTX 410 at the Reed Lake inland terminal. The terminal is between Morse and Herbert.

GMTX is a former Conrail GP15-1 (ex CR 1674). It appears to be a recent arrival at Reed Lake, since it was shot at other locations in 2008 and before.

The Reed Lake elevator itself was completed in 2001. It appears to have rendered obsolete the elevators in nearby Morse and Herbert.

Here are some more Saskatchewan grain elevator photos.