Transcona Grain Elevator Failure & Restoration

North Transcona Grain Elevator Failure and Restoration

The foundation failure of the reinforced-concrete annex of the grain terminal elevator located on the north Transcona Canadian Pacific Railway yard that occurred in the fall of 1913 and its subsequent Restoration is a prominent Manitoba case study in engineering and geoscience. It has been analyzed by many prominent geotechnical engineers over the years. The Canadian Geotechnical Society has compiled a collection of several published articles and historic photographs.

The collection of articles are located on the Canadian Geotechnical Society website as two large pdf files. The story was last presented at the 56th Canadian Geotechnical Conference in Winnipeg in 2003 by James Blatz, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Manitoba, and Ken Skaftfeld, Earth Science Department, UMA Engineering, Winnipeg.

Please check out the content on their website.

Introduction and published articles

https://www.cgs.ca/pdf/110928%20Introduction%20and%20papers.pdf

Photographs of failure and righting

https://www.cgs.ca/pdf/110916%20Skaftfeld%20photos%20Transcona%20Grain%20Elevator_MINIMIZED.pdf

Further Viewing

There has been several video productions to share the story with a wider audience. Engineer Ken Skaftfeld and Bill Parrish Senior of Parrish & Heimbecker Grain Company were interviewed by the Transcona Museum team and published in November 2014. It can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isk4kcFR1I4

The case history continues to attract interest and Geotechs with Clemency published a more technical short video in August of 2025. It can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isk4kcFR1I4

Posted by

Glen N. Cook, PEng (SM), FEC

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