Winnipeg grain firm Parrish and Heimbecker plans to boost throughput at one of its eastern Saskatchewan elevators with upgrades to its rail car loading systems.

Privately-held P+H said Thursday it plans to expand to a 100-car spot, up from 50, at its elevator at Quill Lake, Sask., about 60 km east of Humboldt.

Work on that expansion, connecting to Canadian National Railway’s (CN) Margo subdivision at its site east of town, is expected to start this month for completion in November, the company said.

“The upgrade allows us to clear twice as much grain out of the facility,” P+H said in a release. “Increased shipping will provide more consistent and higher-volume marketing plans to our customers.”

Also, work will begin in August on a new rail car unloading system at the elevator, “which will allow us to unload a rail car off either track at 272 tonnes per hour,” P+H said.

That new system, due for completion in September, would also allow the elevator to unload an “improperly loaded” car or to receive cars loaded elsewhere, the company added.

P+H’s grain handling capacity at Quill Lake was expanded in 2000 from 3,500 tonnes to 9,000, and again to 21,000 tonnes in 2011 with the addition of seven new steel bins.

Separately, the company said Thursday, work is already underway on a fertilizer rail unload tunnel, able to empty a rail car at 20 tonnes per hour — along with what it described as the “first phase of increasing the speed of the facilities’ rail loadout capacity.”

The company has expanded the Quill Lake site’s fertilizer retail business in recent years, having installed a new shed there in 2016. — Glacier FarmMedia Network