The grain trains are back
The bountiful harvest is on its way east. I noticed, from my bus “window on the world” that the colourful Alberta Grain cars are moving in the port region again. Just think, each contains about 90 tonnes of “what the world wants”, and there are hundreds of them in neat rows, waiting their turn.
Somebody at the wheel of an air-conditioned tractor, his satellite radio blasting out one of the hundreds of available channels to cover the machine noise has dragged the harvester up and down those fields of waving wheat. The grain has been trans-shipped, from truck to train to here, in preparation for a trip on down the river to somewhere.
Now, the Bunge elevators are filling and emptying on a continuous rhythm, a sort of bloodstream of grains through an enormous heart. I used to visit the port, my first year here in the city before other responsibilities usurped my free time on a bicycle. A stevedore once told me that the shipping industry loved Quebec because of its rapid loading cycle; filling the hold inside of a day, instead of a week at older facilities. Time is money.
The port railhead has been rather empty all summer, with the consists made up with a bit of output from the paper mill, but things are back up to speed now. Until near spring (Quebec is a year-round facility) the trains will arrive every day, dragging the pride of the Prairies down over the tiny bridge at the head of the St. Charles beside the paper mill, and the cargo will move. I mean, try to imagine the mountain of grain if ever this machine broke. All that bread that wouldn’t get baked, somewhere else in the world.
