Transportation has played a significant role in the development of Canada as a country. We’ve seen the evolution of trains, planes and automobiles from early adoption to the massive infrastructure we enjoy today.
The Mannix family history has deep roots in Canadian transportation. Loram Maintenance of Way has been a core operation for the family since 1954 and is now a leading supplier of track maintenance machinery and services in North America and around the globe.
But even before that, Fred Mannix & Company, Ltd. was involved in the development of several airports during the early years of the war. The company had contracts for the Patricia Bay Airport and the Comox Airport in British Columbia. In Alberta, the outfit helped construct the Fort Macleod Airport and Calgary Municipal Airport.
“I did every job that old Fred could get until the war came on,” recalled Bob Kramer. “Then we started getting more than we could do. We built airports for the fighter pilots and bomber pilots, to train them. They were flying these airplanes off the runway before we finished. They had airplanes going to beat hell while we were trying to build the airports.”
It’s 465 kilometres one-way from Edmonton to Fort Macleod, a trek that Kramer made many times while they were trying to finish the runways.
“I just about wore the highway out going between Edmonton and Macleod, way south. I kept moving this machinery back and forth between one job and another, to get the airports finished for the airplanes.”
