NOVEMBER 2000

    At almost every rural Southern Ontario railway station boasting a team tracks during the transition era between 1945 and 1959, there was a grain dealer. As the mechanization and efficiency of the surrounding farm operations developed over this time period, the local grain merchant became the "general store" of the agricultural trade. In addition to grain, he handled feeds, fuel, implements, building supplies and fertilizer. This month we will explore the possibilities for carload traffic to and from these ubiquitous dealers. Modellers of Southern Ontario operations will find this discussion directly applicable, and for the growing number of American modellers we are hearing from every month, these principles will apply as well.

    In the first couple of decades of the 20th Century, the grain elevator was constructed on rural sidings to serve the farmers during harvest time. Cash crops of wheat, oats, barley, rye and mixed grains were brought to the dealer by the farmers, weighed and sold. In turn, the merchant shipped out carloads of the grain to terminal elevators, millers, brewers and distillers. Through the 1920s and 1930s, many of the local grain dealers became more associated with feed supply, either as part of a co-operative or franchise, or independent. Regardless of ownership or affiliation, they served the same purpose for the farmers.

    By the end of the Second World War, the large scale shipment of harvest grain by carload from small elevators had come to an end. Now the local dealer diversified. The era of the feedlot for beef cattle had arrived, and farmers needed a variety of mixed feeds. The grain dealer, now recognized as primarily a feed mill, answered the demand (this is a good time to tip my hat to my friend Greg Stubbings, employed in a supervisory capacity in the food inspection branch of Agriculture Canada, for his background assistance). The feed industry has traditionally looked for ways to use by-products and waste from various processes as sources of animal feed.

    What types of shipments may arrive at our Southern Ontario feed dealer in the 1945-59 era? He could receive carloads of beet pulp from the plants in Wallaceburg or Chatham, Ontario. This by-product of the sugar extracting process from sugar beets was shipped in the September to December time interval. The merchant may also receive carloads of fish meal from the East Coast. Linseed oilcake meal, a by-product of the oil extracting process from flaxseed, may arrive by the carload. Feed molasses from the Redpath Sugar plant in Toronto could show up in boxcars. Large starch plants (such as those at Port Credit and Cardinal) and brewers and distillers may be the source of by-products for feed.

    More conventional feed commodities would also be delivered to the siding. Premixed bags of mill feeds from a central mixing plant may show up. In the era of interest, the four main feed franchises in Southern Ontario were Shur-Gain, CO-OP, Maple Leaf and Purina (the local dealer would only deal in one of these). Screenings (also known as shorts or middlings) could arrive from terminal elevators at such places as Fort William, Goderich, Collingwood, Owen Sound, Midland, Port McNicoll and Toronto. Screenings were literally the scraps at the "bottom of the barrel" after good grain was removed for domestic milling or export. All of these shipments would arrive or leave in boxcars, bagged or in bulk as appropriate, and the commodities used in custom mixing of feeds for the farmers.

    In arranging carloads for your local feed mill or grain elevator, remember the associated operations. For his customers, the merchant likely handled coal, and possibly fuel oil. Track maps published in Steam at Allandale and To Stratford Under Steam show many such facilities. Farm fence, cement (from plants at St. Marys and the United States, via Canadian wholesalers), aluminum roofing & siding, hydrated lime (a disinfectant as well as amendment for water and soil), calcium chloride (crop spray) and fertilizer could arrive by the carload. If the feed mill operator or an associate was an implement dealer, farm machinery would arrive on flat cars to be unloaded on timber or earth fill ramps. Surplus hay and feed quality grain would move among small elevators all over the province and eastern part of the country to those regions which had a shortage, and occasionally a carload of higher quality grain would be consigned to a terminal elevator.

    A feed mill on your team track is representative of hundreds of actual places in Southern Ontario, Eastern Canada and the United States. It is a wonderful opportunity to tell a story about the surrounding area. When modelling your feed mill, be sure to include several appropriate vehicles in the vicinity--stake trucks, small dump trucks, tank trucks, flatbeds and numerous farm pickup trucks. Send me an e-mail at ian@canadianbranchline.com and let me know how your local feed and grain mills are doing.

Ian Wilson
November 1, 2000

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