Montreal Quebec - An article in the 10 Oct 1928 edition of the Montreal Gazette had good news about that year's grain harvest.
 
"The grain crops of the three prairie provinces of the Dominion this year will be approximately one billion bushels," we reported.
 
That was the highest yield since the start of the century, we said.
 
Before modern farm equipment, manual labour was required to gather those crops.
 
So between 1890 and 1930, "harvest excursion trains" carried labourers from central and eastern Canada to Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
 
This undated, uncredited photograph, shows the crowd waiting for the departure of such a train in the concourse of Windsor Station.
 
A sign in the top left corner reads "Harvester's Special to Regina."
 
A news report three years earlier described the process.
 
"Gathered from the farms and villages of Old Quebec and from the cities of Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers, and townships all along the route, over 9,000 stalwart harvesters boarded 11 trains run by the Canadian railways out of this city and Quebec enroute for the garnering of the 1925 crop in the West."
 
Male labourers staffed "threshing crews," groups of 10 to 12 men that would move from farm to farm.
 
But women also travelled on the harvest excursions.
 
They worked as cooks for the crews.
 
According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, harvest excursions ended in 1930.
 
The new combine harvester meant crews of manual labourers were no longer needed, and the Depression stalled grain production on the Prairies.
 
Author unknown.