Buffalo, NY: GLF (Grange League Federation) Grain Elevator

(3D Satellite)

The Buffalo History Museum posted two photos with the comment:

Buffalo's waterfront: then and now.

The first image, shared from our collection, shows the lake freighter Golden Hind passing the Agway-GLF grain elevator in the summer of 1954.

The present-day image, captured by Joe Cascio, depicts a tiki boat tour, kayakers, and other watercraft passing by Buffalo Riverworks. 

Browse for other historic photos of Buffalo in our picture store, found at https://buffalohistory.smugmug.com/!

Buffalo Area Transportation, Industry, Architecture & Defense shared

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James Cavanaugh Photography posted
From my Archive. A 2012 view of an industrial site along the Buffalo River that was developed in the popular RiverWorks entertainment complex.
Jim Cavanaugh shared
Ron Held: So much skepticism about that project as well as some pushback from nearby businesses. Turned out well with a thinking out of the box approach. Not enough of that in our town.
Jim Cavanaugh: Ron Held it was a big risk. But the owner’s foresight payed off. Big risk, big reward!

The Buffalo History Gazette posted ten photos with the comment:

The Wheeler Elevator

   The Wheeler Elevator was located on the Buffalo River just south of the Michigan Ave. lift bridge. It was the original elevator built on this site, later years two more were added. The Wheeler was completed in 1909 by Monarch Engineering for A.J. Wheeler of the Wheeler Elevator Co. It was built to replace an earlier wooden one which had recently burned down. This was one of the earliest re-enforced concrete elevators constructed in Buffalo, and is unique in that all the bins were open at the top. This is a carry over in design from the wooden elevators. The marine tower was stationary much like the early wooden structures. The open bins were a greater safety hazard from the possibility of grain dust explosions but was probably done as an economy measure where as the bins could be over filled, giving the elevator greater storage capacity. 

  The bins themselves were built in 20 days, making four feet vertically each day illustrating the quickness and efficiency of the "slip form" method of construction. It had a capacity of 700,000 bushels divided into 33 bins of various sizes. The original marine leg could handle 18,000 bushels per hour which was gradually increased over the years until in 1955 a leg was installed by the local Baxter Engineering Co. that was rated at an amazing 50,000 bushels per hour, the greatest of all Buffalo elevators. 

   In later years the Wheeler operated as part of a larger animal feed complex run by GLF and later Agway. Animal feed operations ended in the late 1970’s.  For a number of years after it was used as a boat storage facilities.  It was torn down in 2011.

Brian R. Wroblewski shared with the comment: "That newer [1955] 50k leg made the GLF the fastest house in Buffalo."

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The Wheeler Elevator, oldest extant structure at the Grange League Federation (GLF) complex, was constructed during the 1909 building season on the site of the former wood elevator bearing the same name. The elevator was complete and operational by November of the same year.
The structure was built by the Monarch Engineering Company of Buffalo to the design of the company engineer, H. R. Wait. Basement and bin walls are of concrete, while the gallery, with its distinctive pitched monitor roof, is of structural steel. A fixed marine tower of structural steel and corrugated iron is incorporated within the workhouse at the eastern end of the building.

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View across the top of the open bins. The usual for modern concrete elevators is to have the bins covered with concrete slab with a small hole to fill with grain. Wooden elevators of the past were designed in this manner along with a stationary marine tower as was the case with the Wheeler. It was probably constructed this way to cut down design costs and get a new elevator up and running very quickly.

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The historic Wheeler Elevator in it's last days in 2011.

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View of the Great Northern Elevator from the top of the east tower of Agway "A" of the adjacent elevator to the Wheeler.

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View north showing the rest of the feed mill complex.

Cohocta, MI: Lott Grain Elevator (Old)

Old: (Satellite)

New: (Satellite)

The railroad was the Ann Arbor. The 2005 SPV Map labels it as Tuscola & Saginaw Bay Railway, TSBY. It is now the Great Lakes Central Railroad, GLC.

Those are the freshest "Kent" signs that I have seen. Did they really build that "farmer silo" on top of grain silos? 

Street View, Aug 2019

It sure looks like it.

Street View, Aug 2019

Yep, it is on top. I wonder how they get grain into it because it is above any leg the elevator has.

Satellite

Note the newer elevator in the background.

Street View, Aug 2019

Street View, Aug 2019

SpeedShot Train Photography posted
Great Lakes Central rolls Northbound through Cohoctah Michigan on a Saturday run / February 2022
Roger Riblett shared

Kent
Kent was founded in 1927 and it is still in business.

Corbin, KY: L&N Depot, Railyard, (2015 Closed) Shops and "Urban Tunnel"

Depot: (Satellite)

Railyard: (Satellite, it has a lot of tracks to store coal cars. When I accessed it, there were some cuts of empty hoppers and a cut of covered hoppers in the west yard.)

Car Shop: (Satellite, the roundhouse was east of here)

Locomotive Shop: (Satellite)

Turntable: (Satellite, but this was not the location of the roundhouse)

Yard Tower: (Satellite)

Urban tunnel: (Bridge Hunter; Satellite)

Street View, Nov 2021

Street View

CSX closed the shops in 2015 because they handled primarily coal trains. 180 employees were impacted. [CSX]

"CSX's coal revenue has declined more than $1 billion over the past four years [2011-15]. The company attributed the decline to low natural gas prices and regulatory action." "The Corbin announcement is the second time in a month that CSX said it would close facilities and lay off employees in the Appalachia region as a result of lower coal traffic. Last week, CSX announced it would reduce train operations in Erwin, Tenn., which will impact 300 contract and management employees." [ProgressiveRailroading]

A newspaper reports that 225 jobs are impacted. [TheTimesTribune]

 

Robby Vaughn posted
CSX Corbin, KY Yards (former L&N) Part 2.  Another aerial from Corbin and Kentucky-focused groups making the rounds and again unknown who the originator is so all credit where credit is due.  Had to share since the quality is excellent! Looks to be mid-summer perhaps 2022.  The West Yard is to the left, Car Shops, Locomotive Shops, Service Center, Turntable down the center, East Yard to the right of that.  The former US Steel central wash plant remains and the associated Steel Yard on the far right. The little straight tracks to the top right are the East & Steel Yard leads out the CV Subdivision and the "Highline" access for East Yard trains bound for the KY.  From reports, the East Yard is being dismantled as we speak so this scene may never be duplicated.

This must have been part 1.

Robby Vaughn posted
CSX Corbin, KY Yards (former L&N). This is getting passed around some of the Kentucky groups and I have no idea who was behind the camera or drone but all credit to the originator. One of the better aerials of Corbin taken in 2021 or maybe 2022 from the looks of it with the track layout mostly intact. The East Yard is in the process of removal so the same shot today would be vastly different. My grandmother lived on the corner where the red arrow is. In the 1970's, a whistle would have me sprinting off the porch and down two blocks to watch the action. If only I had owned a camera...
Charles Elliott: When I worked there they had a west and east yards the west yard of I'm correct was for all the coal train's and the east yard were everything else the new shop was build;around 1986 I think I worked on the locomotive shop from 1986 until 1990 as a pipe fitter.
Robby Vaughn: Charles Elliott Yep, they did a huge yard rebuild in the 80's. My brother didn't want to go to school so dad got him a job on the track gang in the East if I remember correctly. A few days later he enrolled at the University of Kentucky.
Wesley Bowers: Patio Yard could basically handle all of the local traffic for customer cars. With the fall off of coal, Corbin Terminal has essentially outlived being the fully functional yard that is once was. I’m not downplaying it’s importance but the reality is coal is on the way out. Between Patio and Loyall. Corbin really isn’t needed. It’s evident by how empty it is in this picture. Most of those cars are stored there anyways.
Evan Miller: Wesley Bowers The best description of CSX’s view of Cincy-Atlanta is that they won’t want it, but don’t want to get rid of it either.

Ryan Chugg posted
CSX's Corbin,KY Locomotive facility in 2013.
Chad Anderson: Use to love driving thru this yard in the 90s. You could see almost anything CSX owned or borrowed.

I deliberately included the signal in the lower-left corner because in this day and age of PTC (Postitive Train Control), searchlight signals have become rare.

Street View, Jul 2022

Three of the many images in csxthsociety.

a, p2

b, p5

c, p9

According to a 1978 topo, the locomotive shops and the current turntable were added after 1978.

1952 Corbin Quad @ 24,000

"Urban tunnel" is my term for a long underpass because of a railyard. The first one I encountered was Austin Blvd. under the BNSF/CB&Q yard in Cicero, IL. Note the traffic signal to indicate turns for using the one traffic lane.

Street View, Nov 2021

The Arch coal cleaning plant is closed and their tracks were full of empty hoppers.

Satellite

Casselton, ND: Two Old Grain Elevators, Flour, Seeds & Ethanol and RRVW Railroad

From west to east:

Ethanol: (Satellite)

Unity Seed: (Satellite)

Valley Grain Milling (old): (Satellite)

ADM: (Satellite)

East of town (old): (Satellite)

South of town: MRG&A: (Satellite)  Identity AG: (Satellite)  North Dakota Seed Farm: (Satellite)

RRVW = Red River Valley & Western Railroad, see below

Fortunately for me, there are no trees in this area so I could find street views even if they are at a distance.

Ethanol: 

Street View, Aug 2021

Unity Seed:

Street View, Aug 2021

Valley Grain Milling: 

Street View, Jul 2019

Bonus: While looking for the above view, I happened to notice this view to the east. I'll bet there used to be an interurban railroad here.

Street View, Jul 2019

Looking West:  Note the power pole line. This is probably another example of a power company buying the right-of-way of a bankrupt interurban railroad. The top wires on those poles would have been the state of the art voltage back then.

Street View, Jul 2019

ADM: even the ADM plant has some character in this town.

Street View, Jun 2021

East of town:

Street View, Jun 2021

South of town: This is a grain elevator, fertilizer and sprayer fluids (herbicide, pesticide and/or fungicide) service center. And maybe it is a feed mill.

Street View, Aug 2021

In one of the street views of the above Maple River Grain & Agronomy, I noticed some more bins in the background. That is how I found this image. Note the two locomotives on the left side.

Satellite

And I spotted a seed farm:

Street View, Aug 2021

And the town has an exit off I-94 and an airport.

Given the air-flow truck trailer in the driveway, it looks like this mill still operates. In fact, it mills barley for pet food and feed industries. [ValleyGrainMilling] That niche market explains why such a small mill is still viable. 

They also make pea flour and lentil flour as well as barley flour. [VGM-ingredients]

Justin D. Doerr, Mar 2013

The ADM facility must also make flour. In this case, it would be wheat flour. That would explain why it has some big buildings and handles carloads rather than unit trains. A satellite image caught five rail cars at the plant, one of which is under a loading facility. I presume they are for shipping flour. But the top of the cars look strange for flour hoppers.

Satellite

So I used Street View to get a side view of the rail cars. There weren't any in Aug 2021. But Jul 2019 had these. But 3-bay hoppers are for grain instead of flour. 

Street View, Jul 2019

Aug 2013 caught some ADM hoppers at the grain unloading facility. So it appears that ADM supplies this mill with wheat from some of its other elevators as well as unloading trucks from local farmers.

Street View, Aug 2013

In Jul 2008, I could not find any hoppers, but I found a boxcar! What would they be sending or receiving in a boxcar? Also, it looks like someone else owned the plant.

Street View, Jul 2008

Given the hoppers and even a boxcar, it is obvious that this plant is getting carload rail service. Since Class I railroads hate carload service, I investigated weather or not the tracks were owned by BNSF or a shortline railroad. According to a USGS map, the east-west Northern Pacific route is owned by BNSF, but the Great Northern route going south from town is owned by the Red River Valley & Western Railroad. And there is an interchange yard just west of town. So I suspect that RRVW switches the ADM plant for BNSF.

The RRVW has trackage rights on the BNSF, so I think I'm correct that RRWV handles BNSF's switching duties. Some of these routes are former Northern Pacific routes as well as former Great Northern Routes.

RRVW operates 577 route miles that it obtained from Burlington Northern in Jul 1987. It handles about 60,000 carloads per year. It also handles the grain shuttle trains. (So the loop track at the ethanol plant must be serviced by RRWV instead of BNSF.) [BNSF]

rrvw

"The short line currently services more than eighty customers and over thirty grain elevators. Its connections to the outside world currently include BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific." [american-rails]

I'm used to farming practices in northern Indiana and Illinois where field after field is either corn or soybeans. I'm learning that farming is more diverse around here. We have already read about barley, peas and lentils. Unity Seed indicates that non-GMO soybeans and several varieties of wheat are also grown around here.

UnitySeed

The post that motivated researching Casselton, ND. The name of the grain elevator that is east of town is Dalrymple.

Putnam C: Granville, IL: Berry/Trendt & McCormick Coal Mine

(Satellite)

Roger Kujawa posted three photos with the comment: "Berry Coal Mine, Putnam County, Granville, Illinois. The mechanism tilting the box car is interesting. I have seen this to unload grain but never in a coal situation.  Any information would be gratefully appreciated."

Paul Meier: Looks like a way to fill boxcars. Pity the guy who has to unload them.

Roger Kujawa: Paul Meier I remember hearing the Burlington used box cars for coal. I never considered how the loaded them.

Roger Kujawa: Thanks to Jerome Albin for this link https://digital.hagley.org/80318_085...

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Andy Zukowski posted
Trendt & McCormick Coal Mine, Granville, Illinois. 1905

Dennis DeBruler commented on Andy's post

Dennis DeBruler commented on Andy's post

https://wikiimage.isgs.illinois.edu/ilmines/webfiles/topo-mines/spring-valley.pdf

I noticed that back then the NYC/Kankakee Belt/CI&S did not share the Milwaukee route to the Illinois River bridge. That is a detail that the 2005 SPV Map does not have.

1911 La Salle Quad @ 62,500

https://wikiimage.isgs.illinois.edu/ilmines/webfiles/topo-mines/spring-valley.pdf

Dennis DeBruler commented on Andy's post

The mine dump documented on the state's topo map still exists.
 https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4...