Connections to manufacturers

[Roy in TO]

This may relate to the history of our trailers, but has anybody ever mapped out the connections between the various plants? I did tonight! It was an interesting discovery and quite possibly links many of our trailers.

The boler, Winnipeg, MB
Scamp, Backus, MN
Tri-Fab in Tripoli, IA
Eco in Aurora, NE
boler American, Wichita, KS
Casita, Rice, TX

Link to the google maps route

Interesting? Thoughts or comments?

What do you think the likelyhood of organizing a Glass "caravan" tour might be?

[Deb & Chuck]

Roy, You left some out like Trillium, Bigfoot and Escape. Is Eco still in business?
Chuck

[Kevin K]

Very cool, all in the central area of the USA .

[Alf S.]

Hi: Roy... I think that there were several reasons for the locations of the mfg. plants after Winnipeg. Rural locals were inexpensive, away from populated areas for fire hazzards, and brought jobs to areas of low employment. A good source of shipping( RRX or HWY) close by is essential. My 2c. worth.
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[pjanits]

And it was warmer

[james kent]

Very interresting, Roy
They are all roughly six hours apart or a good days towing. The highway pictures with the map description, once you got into Nabraska, were interresting. How about adding the two Boler plant locations in Ontario just to get some of us Eastern'rs headed towards Manitoba. You know, up to Midhurst near Barrie and then to Earlton in N Ont, and then on to Winnipeg picking up trailerites along the way. Add in all the FG plants from Chillywack Eastward for the Westerners and a meet-up ,maybe,near Portage La Prarie.
I'd say that YOU"VE got yourself an ambitious project. Man, I sure wouldn't want to take that on.
How to talk everyone into taking vacation time at the SAME time?
How many units on each leg of journey?
Which campground is best?
How many campsite permits needed each location?
Who needs water, hydro and sewage and who doesn't?
How many added since last stop?
How many have dropped out along the way?
What about breakdowns? Do you just leave the poor guy on his own?
How to communicate with each other while on the road?
Is there a pecking order? The poor guy at the tail end will get there tomorrow if there's too many tag up.
? ? ? ? ?
AND You've got to please us all.
It would be like organizing a a get-to-gether for every day of the trip, in each province and each state. But if anyone ever pulled something like this off, it would be the talk of the FG forums for months to come. What with winter comming, perhaps it would be a good topic to ward off the cold weather.

"THE FANTASY TOUR"
Everyone gets a chance to add features and suggestions to the tour.
Start with a general route description and see where it goes.
Holy Cow Roy, look what you started.

[Pamela H]

Very interresting, Roy
They are all roughly six hours apart or a good days towing. The highway pictures with the map description, once you got into Nabraska, were interresting. How about adding the two Boler plant locations in Ontario just to get some of us Eastern'rs headed towards Manitoba. You know, up to Midhurst near Barrie and then to Earlton in N Ont, and then on to Winnipeg picking up trailerites along the way. Add in all the FG plants from Chillywack Eastward for the Westerners and a meet-up ,maybe,near Portage La Prarie.
I'd say that YOU"VE got yourself an ambitious project. Man, I sure wouldn't want to take that on.
How to talk everyone into taking vacation time at the SAME time?
How many units on each leg of journey?
Which campground is best?
How many campsite permits needed each location?
Who needs water, hydro and sewage and who doesn't?
How many added since last stop?
How many have dropped out along the way?
What about breakdowns? Do you just leave the poor guy on his own?
How to communicate with each other while on the road?
Is there a pecking order? The poor guy at the tail end will get there tomorrow if there's too many tag up.
? ? ? ? ?
AND You've got to please us all.
It would be like organizing a a get-to-gether for every day of the trip, in each province and each state. But if anyone ever pulled something like this off, it would be the talk of the FG forums for months to come. What with winter comming, perhaps it would be a good topic to ward off the cold weather.

"THE FANTASY TOUR"
Everyone gets a chance to add features and suggestions to the tour.
Start with a general route description and see where it goes.
Holy Cow Roy, look what you started.

Why not? The Airstream people did it for years...Assign each of us big red numbers to go on the front of our eggs...

[Roy in TO]

You left some out like Trillium, Bigfoot and Escape. Is Eco still in business?

Ooops, guess I forgot to mention I was looking at the boler and it's prodigy.
More specifically, I was looking at the failed boler American and who might have produced them and what became of them.

I don't think the Eco was around for long.

[Roy in TO]

Rural locals were inexpensive, away from populated areas for fire hazzards, and brought jobs to areas of low employment. A good source of shipping( RRX or HWY) close by is essential.

You got it Alf,
This gets me to wondering why N & S Dakota were left out of the equation? They were more in line with a direct route to Wichita, KS from Winnipeg. Tax or labour laws? Wages? Skilled labour?
The page on the boler American startup indicates the staff were trained in Winnipeg. It says the "first three plants ... in three north central states". I assume they were in Backus MN, Tripoli IA and Aurora NE. The article says 3 molds were made (I'd assume one for each plant) with 2 more on the way. That may provide a clue to the serial numbering of the boler American.

I'm not sure how they planned to make a minimum of 5000 units in the first year of production. Maybe that was a typo, 500 seems more realistic since it took 4 years for the Canadian boler to get up to 1000 units in two plants.

Maybe Reace can let us know how long it takes to make a single body.