Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness: The sky excavator

Saturday, July 12, 2025

The sky excavator

Yes, really, that's what Google calls it.

Many communities have a thing to encourage the tourists to stop, and maybe spend a bit of money. They range from the Vegreville Egg, to the Torrington gopher hole museum. Yes, really. I've seen the egg as I drove from somewhere to somewhere else during my so-called oil and gas career. The sign for the museum was seen as I drove past Torrington, on the way to Consort. At one time I was quite prepared to swear I've been on every paved road between here and Consort. Why? Just north of town there was an Apache gas plant that quite liked me. I made many trips there. During those trips the car made as much money as I did, and went towards paying it off quick. Highway miles, easy peasy.

I hadn't known this till yesterday, but there is a tiny little town in Alberta called Brant. It's sort of between High River and Vulcan. And in this tiny little town is an excavator mounted up high on a platform built above the railroad tracks beside the grain elevator. Yes, really.

The occasion started as a ramble with Sean, and then our friend Cam joined in, and another Michelle who has sometimes gone on photo journeys with Sean and Cam. I don't think I'd met Michelle before, but then regular readers know my memory has gaps.

Yes, really, another Michelle in my life. There's Michelle the famous model and photo collaborator. There's Michelle that figured out when it was safe to retire. The Michelle in the pool who's breast stroke was nearly as fast as my front crawl. There was a work Michelle at one time, but I've lost track.

Back to the excavator. We started in Blackie, another small town. There was a lovely big mural, unfortunately almost half covered by an ugly white van. Still, there were some interesting photos, and I used up a bit of film, but didn't finish off the rolls. Soon. After a bit of a walk around town, and attracting some puzzled looks from the locals, we were off again.

Back to the excavator. There isn't much else in Brant. We hung around the excavator, and didn't get run over by the train passing through.

Here's the photo evidence.

The train rumbled through, stopped, backed up to hook up the cars patiently waiting, then headed off.

No, we didn't go up the stairs to scope out the view. Often there are signs saying things similar to "authorized access only" but there wasn't on this. Then again, it's one of those situations where a sign seems redundant. After all, the CPR, or whatever it's called now after the merger, can prosecute someone just being on their right of way. Although I'm unsure if this is CPR property, or the elevator, or the town, or some private enterprise.

You are wondering why. I know this. Look carefully at the end of the boom, where normally a bucket is mounted.

For access to the top of the rail car.

A view not commonly seen of an excavator. Look carefully at the metal thing running parallel to the top of the frame. It's a giant probe mounted on the end of the boom, and it's as long as the excavator tracks. The excavator itself is chained down to prevent someone from accidentally driving it off the platform.

It seems the probe is inserted into the top of the rail car to aid the cargo (grain? seeds? fertilizer?) falling out the bottom of the rail car into the hopper of an auger that appears to provide a way of loading the cargo into a truck.

However, questions remain. The idea that farmers bring grain to the elevator, where it is stored till a train comes along, and elevator equipment loads the grain into a rail car is well understood. I am unsure if this particular elevator is still used for that purpose.

I am even less sure about the reverse process. Why would grain be emptied out of a rail car to a truck, quite literally in the middle of a lot of very little? Where would it be taken that it couldn't go by rail? We speculated crop seeds, going to a farm, but are they really delivered in rail car loads? Is there somewhere nearby that uses rail car loads of fertilizer?

And another thing. Gravity has an extremely reliable recording of pulling things down. We failed to understand why anything would not fall out of the bottom of a rail car when the hatch was opened, and would need the aid of a vibrating probe. And if it was needed here, why not elsewhere?

Here's a small part of the Blackie mural, and a couple more photos of Brant.