Trip Planning With Google Maps

I'm heading out to Portage la Prairie tomorrow to do a little railfanning, and also to scout out the area for locations to feature in my upcoming model train layout. I have been using Google Maps to see what's around, and it has proved very useful.

For example, I was looking at the CP Minnedosa subdivision, which starts in Portage and heads northwest, and I found this at Macdonald (mile 9.2).

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It's a modern grain elevator, with a GP15 for a shunter. A must see!

I already know I want to take some shots at CN Bloom, about 9 miles west of Portage on the CN Rivers sub. I've been there before but I didn't get very good shots.

On the CP Carberry sub west of Portage, I want to take some shots of the Simplot facility just outside Portage. This modern potato processing facility was completed in 2003 at a cost of $150 million.


There's a facility a few miles west of Simplot that is intriguing me. It's not an elevator, it's not a siding, but I can't tell what it is from the Street View.

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There is also this elevator just east of Portage on the CP Carberry subdivision that I haven't shot yet.


So, a few sites to investigate tomorrow!