The weather today is just perfect for doing a little visiting, yesterday it was around 30c. and we ended the day with a thunder storm, today low 20s.
We are going to Inglis today the only village left in Canada with its elevator line intact. To get there we have to drive through Russell, what a beautiful little town. The arches you see over the road are laminated wood and were made here in Russell for the roof of an ice rink in Dauphin, when the arena was pulled down the arches were rescued and returned to Russell and erected down the main St.
The village of Inglis 16km. north of Russell "The Last Line"
Built alongside the railway line 5 elevators, you can only see 4 here 1,2,3 and 5, No. 4 is a little smaller and can't be seen from this angle.
No. 4 & 3, below No. 5
A lot of time and money has gone into restoring these elevators? the renovation of 3 & 4 cost over $100,000. and is now in working order.
The reception is in No. 5 with a film show and a museum type setup. 3 & 4 The real thing and from what our guide was saying they intend doing lots of other things with 1 & 2.
This is how it all works, simple!
The wagon arrives at the elevator and puts its front wheels on the metal plates, which tip it backwards, the grain falls out of the box through the grill, which you can just see, and falls into a hopper below.
The tipping mechanism, made in Winnipeg
The operator called "the agent" then turns that wheel, which directs the grain into the right bin, he then starts the engine which lifts the grain in "cups"up the leg, which is the wooden column that the wheel is attached too from the hopper under the floor right to the very top where it drops down into the bin he has selected. Simple!
This is part of the emptying cycle, the agent empty's a bin into this hopper by gravity as it falls down the shoot it passes through filters to clean it, when the hopper is full he weighs it and then releases it into the main hopper under the floor, selects the rail car setting on his wheel, starts the engine and the cups take the grain back up the leg and then it drops down the selected shoot and into the rail car parked on the track outside. Simple! the guy who thought up this was a genius.
This was done by one man, the only help he had was the driver helping him unload the grain truck from the farm, the rest he did alone.
Rushton 15 hp Diesel engine, built in Lincoln England. this little engine provided all the power to drive the elevator.
This machine is a grain cleaner, not used here, probably from a farm where it would be used to clean some grain to be used as seed.
The instrument on the table is used to test the moisture content of the grain it had to be under a certain level otherwise they wouldn't accept the grain.
No.2 Elevator.
Passing back through Russell on our way back to the trailer at Binscarth.
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