While in North Dakota I took a little trip west of Grand Forks to see the grain elevator at Emerado. I was hoping to see a train too, but nothing came along. Here's the view along the tracks.
You can see there is a siding and an elevator track. The trackside signs say "ESS EMERADO" and "EMERADO". Roger Workman tells me ESS stands for "East Spring Switch". As you probably know, a spring switch is a switch that can be run through from the frog end and returns to its original position after the train has gone through. It is useful at the end of sidings so that the conductor doesn't have to reline the switch after his/her train has left the siding.
Now, on to the elevator.
It is owned by the Emerado Farmers Elevator Company. Not much is available on the Internet about them. The USDA page I just linked says they deal in "Chemicals, Fertilizer, Seed, Grain, Fertilizer Application, Trucking, Feed". Not unusual for a grain elevator these days.
Quite a few annexes with this elevator!
While I was there, I couldn't help but notice the nice crossing signs.
Emerado is probably better known for being just south of the Grand Forks Air Force base. The base is fairly young, having been formed in 1955. It hosted F-101B Voodoos and then F-106 Delta Darts for a short time, moving on to the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system, before hosting B-52s and B-1 bombers. It also had Minuteman ballistic missiles until 2001. It used to host KC-135 tankers as part of the 319th Air Base Wing until late last year. Word is that it will host RQ-4 Global Hawks starting this year.
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