A recent Western Producer pointed to our growing concern about how grid roads can be maintained when pounded by ever-increasing grain tonnages hauled in huge semi-trailers.
I started my grain transportation career behind a friendly pair of equines called Rufus and Phyllis, moving to market 55 bushels of wheat at a time in a green wagon box.The payload weighed 3,300 pounds. (We had no kilograms in 1940.) On a muddy dirt road this weight would cause the steel-covered wheels to dig in, putting extra drag on the horsepower.
Rufus would hump his shoulders and forge ahead. Phyllis would obligingly let him.
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Today, instead of Rufus and Phyllis, we have massive motors that can propel a semi past anything on the road except a gas station. These semis carry many times the amount of wheat I loaded into the family wagon box and even the modern road with its engineered subgrade, base and surface breaks apart under the weight.
We have to rethink our grain transportation methods.
Farmers have been forced to produce in volume and some of the most productive land lies far removed from the diminished network of railway tracks.
No matter what kind of road we build it will crack if we keep upping the tonnages. Truck designers have attempted to deal with this by using more tires, spreading the weight, but this has a practical limit.
Canals and pipelines have been proposed and shot down by the railway and trucking lobby, not to mention the minister of finance.
Were we a bit hasty in pulling up all those railway spikes?
