Along the Stewart Southern (2024)

I first encountered the Stewart Southern Railway in the summer of 2015. We were visiting friends in the Regina area and I spent the morning driving from Regina to Stoughton and back, along the arrow-straight former CP Tyvan subdivision. Read about that here.

When I was in the Regina area in June 2024, I decided to drive home south of the Trans-Canada Highway. That meant a trip along the Stewart Southern again, which was great, as I knew there had been changes in the past 9 years and I wanted to see the line again.

Some things have changed – a lot – and some have stayed the same.

Richardson

Richardson is the northern end of the Stewart Southern, and there were some noticeable changes here. The presence of two “new” locomotives for the SSR is certainly a change!

When I visited in 2015, the Stewart Southern had a fleet of leased blue and white GP38-2 locomotives, and three old GE B-units. The fleet has changed a lot since Watco acquired the line.

According to the Canadian Trackside Guide, the 2024 fleet of the Stewart Southern was:

• CRLX 2000, GP20, many previous owners, originally Southern Pacific
• CRLX 2001, GP20-Slug (!), originally ATSF
• CRLX 2020, GP38-2, originally Southern Railway
• CRLX 2021, GP38-2, originally Southern Railway
• GMTX 2213, GP38-2, originally Penn Central
• 4255, B23-7, originally ATSF
• FURX 5529, GP38-2, originally Southern Railway

The first two, CRLX 2000 and 2001, were parked at the edge of SSR property in Richardson. They look pretty sharp in their green and black livery.

In 2015 I noted the Legumex Walker facility in Richardson. Scoular bought Legumex Walker in late 2015.

There was clearly some construction going on with the Stewart Southern at Richardson. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I did notice this TransCore AEI reader mounted by the track.

Today railways track the location of cars using Automatic Equipment Identification (AEI) “tags” mounted on rail cars. They pass these readers and are recorded, and that position information is shared with railways and shippers. Often these readers are located near yards and at exchange points between railways, like here where the SSR exchanges with CPKC.

The photo above is looking north toward Regina and CPKC track.

Onwards!

Kronau

Nothing appears to have changed in Kronau. Their grain elevator still stands, although its Centennial logo has faded a lot since 2015. The presence of grain cars at the siding is a reassuring sight.

Lajord

There were BIG CHANGES in Lajord!

Back in 2015 there was a sleepy siding and back track in Lajord, used for storing tank cars.

Today the town is the host of a huge grain storage and shipping facility by Purely Canada. They are a subsidiary of Above Food, a large Regina-based company with operations in Canada and the USA.

The facility in Lajord started operation in 2016 with about 7,500 feet of track, and has been expanding since then. They expanded their track to 21,000 feet in 2020 so they could store up to 250 grain cars, and in November 2020 they loaded their first 112 car unit train. Unit trains are important because CPKC and CN love them – they just have to hook on and deliver them to the destination, without any switching along the way. The railways give preferred pricing for unit trains because they don’t have to do much handling.

In 2020 the federal government invested $2.2 million from its National Trade Corridor Funds in Lajord to add an additional 12,000 feet of track. Purely Canada contributed its own $4.3 million to the project.

What I saw impressed me greatly! There are five very long tracks in Lajord and hundreds of rail cars.

Two more of Stewart Southern’s locomotives were on the main line, 2021 and 5529.

On the south end of Lajord was another facility, owned by Global Food and Ingredients (GFI). Unfortunately this facility was shutting down as part of GFI’s bankruptcy.

Onwards, again!

Sedley

At Sedley was a nice surprise – the Stewart Southern’s sole remaining GE unit, ex Santa Fe #4255.

It was parked on the elevator track, and by the look of the rails, it has been there for a little while.

It’s still nice to see!

Francis

The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool logo is really starting to show through on the Francis grain elevator. There were a couple of dozen cars in storage at Francis.

I’ll skip over the grain elevators at Osage, Fillmore and Creelman as they haven’t changed significantly since 2015, as far as I could see. I still photographed them, of course.

The elevator at Fillmore was busy, with lots of SSR-owned cars like ALBX 396423, 396030 and 628132 still showing their Alberta heritage.

A Critter

While driving between Creelman and Stoughton, I spotted a small four-legged creature running across the road. I pulled off to the shoulder, grabbed my camera and started shooting. I took five photos. Four were out of focus, but this one worked. It was the shot of the day, in my opinion!

Stoughton

Things were fairly quiet at the Crescent Point oil loading facility outside Stoughton. Oil by rail has been pretty quiet recently, especially with the opening of the long-delayed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Back in early 2017, a new oil refinery was announced for Stoughton. A new company, Dominion Energy Processing, was formed for this purpose. Clearly the refinery hasn’t happened, and DEP’s web page is broken. It seemed a little silly, given that Regina already has the Co-Op Refinery Complex.

Stoughton is the end of the line for the Stewart Southern Railway, but it definitely was not the end of my journey home.

I drove east along the former CP Arcola subdivision, stopping to photograph new-to-me grain elevators in Arcola, Wauchope, Redvers and Antler before crossing the border into Manitoba.

Just One More Thing

Right after I crossed into Manitoba, I was greatly disturbed to see this.

The former Manitoba Pool grain elevator at Sinclair, MB lost its top.

You may recall that when I was driving to Saskatchewan earlier in this trip, it was extremely windy. Well, it turns out that it was very windy in Sinclair too, and it knocked the cupola off the elevator.

The cupola had been damaged in an earlier wind storm, and repaired, somewhat, but this was the death blow. I was told by the last elevator agent that the owner has decided to demolish the elevator.

I’m glad I was able to visit this elevator a couple of times. It goes to show you – shoot everything, and don’t wait!