Grain Elevators

Where to start on this topic without going backwards and sideways? Years of talk about the vanishing elevators had us not expecting to see very many so we've been pleasantly surprised to find that they still exist, sort of. The new ones are enormous and concrete but there are enough of the old wooden ones that they've melded into our brains as a real part of the Saskatchewan landscape. There are a very few still in use but most are empty, some in grave disrepair and the lucky ones turned into museums.

It took me a while to get the concept of the elevators, explanations seemed to stop with the first step, the producer delivery, but this is my version of what happens. Please feel free to chirp in with corrections...

Yes, that Dog River

1. The producer arrives with grain on a cart, drives up the ramp and into the elevator, onto a weigh scale built into the floor. There is a grate in the scale cover, with the metal vanes typically slanted so a horse sees it as a solid floor and doesn't spook. The cart either has a tilt mechanism or a shovel and the grain is emptied into the pit below. The grain is analyzed for moisture content and debris which affects the price. The empty cart is reweighed and the difference plus the other factors determine what the producer receives. Some elevators were modified to accommodate larger trucks (by cutting out some rafters!) but the system was the same. 

2. A conveyor belt in the pit carries the grain sideways to a scoop/bucket system, the elevator, that carried the grain up and up to one of several bins. An elevator handled more than one product and a wheel was used to direct the product into the appropriate bin-in-the-sky. 

3. A train pulls up to take delivery and this is the part that was only sketchily described when I said was was still confused. It is so basic to local people they couldn't understand my blindspot so I'm winging it here. From the appropriate bin above, grain, peas, lentils, whatever comes down a chute onto another scale to be weighed. Then another conveyor belt and scoop/elevator rig carries the product back up high enough to go out the side of the elevator and down into the train car. And that, I think, is that.

Other interesting tidbits: 

• The elevators are built of 2x4s on the flat, stacked like a log house. Otherwise the weight of the grain would push the sides out. That's a lot of wood and all of Saskatchewan's plentiful forests are way in the north. The major structural elements are enormous so maybe came from BC.

• Grain is very dusty and the dust is explosive. More than a few of the elevators burned down. Apparently once an elevator fire starts it is impossible to stop so the effort goes into containment.
• There used to be an elevator every 8 miles along the train tracks, the distance a horse could haul a loaded cart in a day. Wiki says there were 6000 elevators back in the 1930s.