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Caption: Trillium is pictured here at old Robin Hood mill, spotting flour hoppers for transloading. I was a little confused when first I came across a similar scene several months ago, seeing flour go directly from hopper to truck at the site of this old mill, and kind of wondered what the full story was. However, no sooner than a few days after taking this shot, my question was answered on the ol' Facebook: flour is shipped to here by rail from Ardent Mills in Minnesota, and transloaded directly to truck to be taken to Rich Products in Fort Erie.
With respect to the mill itself, London Agricultural Commodities leases spaces from Ceres, and is using it for grain storage. They use rail service as well, and it was my understanding this unit grain train I saw in Vinemount in 2019 was ultimately destined for them.
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James, James, you are a genius ! I have constantly been wondering what is happening at the old Robin Hood Flour Mill elevator in Humberstone. First saw the elevator on a NS&T interurban excursion when the car operated on the NS&T spur right up to the elevator. It was a favourite activity on these excursions to operate an interurban car over freight traffic only sidings/spurs. In NS&T days, an electric freight motor was out-posted to Port Colbourne to switch grain/flour cars, often 5 days a week. Cuts of 20, 30 cars were often pulled by the motor up to the Merriton NS&T/CN interchange, or to interchange with CN in Port Colborne. Very nice picture of ex-CP 1859 , and greatly appreciate your explanation on what happens today at the elevator. Great to see the elevator once again seeing rail service. Do you know how often Trillium serves this site ? Thanks for posting.
Nicely done James.
Thanks guys, and thanks for that most interesting back story railwayguy.
Not sure on the specifics, but they’re down in Port Colborne at least a couple days a week, and to be honest it is very possible it’s more often than that. I’ve run into them switching out the flour hoppers a few times now.. just gotta cross your fingers it’s not 340.
Great shot James, that truck on the left really helped to balance the scene out.
Thanks Matt. And yeah, I’d shot this move several times, but had held off sharing it for various reasons.. sometimes the power wasn’t right (i.e. it was 340 cab forward), other times the sun wasn’t right, and other times it just quite frankly didn’t feel right (i.e. a little unbalanced without anything on the left side of the frame). When the Mack truck showed up, I knew I’d finally gotten one I was content with, even though it was cloudy.