To Winnipeg

FTLComm - Highway #1 East - April 3, 1999

Friday we made the trip down the mostly single lane highway number one from Regina to Winnipeg. I thought it might be interesting for you to see some of the things that caught my eye as we were driving along. The first observation that we noticed as we moved South of Raymore Friday was that the Regina plains had still considerably more snow on the ground then we in the Tisdale/Melfort area. The Valley South of Southey looked much like a normal spring with much of it flooded from run-off. This is surprised of course because as we have noted before there is virtually no run-off whatever in the Tisdale area. The image above was taken in the Sintaluta area where the trees still hold a lot of frozen water. The amount varies with the terrain but

this is a very different kind of country-side and will make a difference for agriculture in the Southern part of the province is this is the situation throughout.

It has been a year since I have driven down this highway and the growth of inland terminals is the main feature as you travel along. Besides these monsters looming along CP mainline the names have changed. Alberta and Manitoba Wheat Pools have merged and their new facilities have their new logo and there were three grain companies I had not seen before. No doubt this indicates the drastic change that larger elevators has meant to the grain handling industry in general.

Below is one of these newcomers that we are familiar with and that is Louis Dreyfus who have their operating facility

at Tisdale. This picture is the new Louis Dreyfus facility near Virden Manitoba.

This intermodal freight on the CP mainline is hustling its way West but as we were travelling on a holiday I assumed that was the reason we did not see and moving grain block trains.

But being a holiday certainly did not seem to inhibit the flow of heavy trucks. We were releaved as everyone is when they reach the divided portions of highway #1 because the stretch from Indian Head to Virden seems like a long and deadly trail. As you can see from these images we have the sun at our back as Saskatchewan was socking up the rays but Manitoba had the skies of precipitation and as we travelled East they just kept getting darker and darker.
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*FTLComm - Highway #1 East - April 3, 1999*
Friday we made the trip down the mostly single lane highway number one from Regina to Winnipeg. I thought it might be interesting for you to see some of the things that caught my eye as we were driving along. The first observation that we noticed as we moved South of Raymore Friday was that the Regina plains had still considerably more snow on the ground then we in the Tisdale/Melfort area. The Valley South of Southey looked much like a normal spring with much of it flooded from run-off. This is surprised of course because as we have noted before there is virtually no run-off whatever in the Tisdale area. The image above was taken in the Sintaluta area where the trees still hold a lot of frozen water. The amount varies with the terrain but
	this is a very different kind of country-side and will make a difference for agriculture in the Southern part of the province is this is the situation throughout. It has been a year since I have driven down this highway and the growth of inland terminals is the main feature as you travel along. Besides these monsters looming along CP mainline the names have changed. Alberta and Manitoba Wheat Pools have merged and their new facilities have their new logo and there were three grain companies I had not seen before. No doubt this indicates the drastic change that larger elevators has meant to the grain handling industry in general. Below is one of these newcomers that we are familiar with and that is Louis Dreyfus who have their operating facility
at Tisdale. This picture is the new Louis Dreyfus facility near Virden Manitoba. This intermodal freight on the CP mainline is hustling its way West but as we were travelling on a holiday I assumed that was the reason we did not see and moving grain block trains.

But being a holiday certainly did not seem to inhibit the flow of heavy trucks. We were releaved as everyone is when they reach the divided portions of highway #1 because the stretch from Indian Head to Virden seems like a long and deadly trail.	As you can see from these images we have the sun at our back as Saskatchewan was socking up the rays but Manitoba had the skies of precipitation and as we travelled East they just kept getting darker and darker. -