Eagles International Forum

OK folks as I commented on this thread: [url]http://www.eaglesinternational.net/test ... 1da162866e[/url it really hit home how "fragile" the future of our forum is.

Without question, our forum contains an amazing amount of Eagle technical data. It is reasonable easy to find good technical information via our search engines.

That said, it takes a pretty good effort to keep this forum operating at a decent level. That does not include the daily effort to weed out large amount of spam applications and approve legit applications.

So, here are some simple thoughts about the status of our forum:

1. The various bus Facebook sites are pretty active. Bus forums, in general, are less active than they used to be. I, like many of you, monitor the various bus FB sites. They tend to be more social than technical. I think that is a general trend. Folks seem to enjoy the social aspect of FB and only seem to seek technical help when they are in trouble. Some of the technical comments on FB make me cringe, but they often get "corrected" and the end result is some useful information.

2. Our traffic is down considerably from years past. We are kind of the opposite of FB. We are much more technical based and don't have a lot of social exchange. That was the concept when we created this forum in 2008. We still have new folks registering for membership to the forum. That said, folks seem to be more intimated about posting questions here than on FB. We still get some decent technical questions, but they don't always get the technical support we were so famous for in the past.

3. Many of the great information resources for our forum no longer participate. Many now concentrate on FB. That is probably the tend for most forums. Over the years, we have all seen communication technology change. Newsgroups are mostly dead. Yahoo groups are much less active. Now forums seem to be going in the same direction.

3. I am 75 and have no help with this forum. When I can no longer keep this thing going, it will probably die.

4. I have asked for help in the past and get no response. There are contract resources, but they would not have the same desire to keep this going as I do. Sadly, many of the folks who love Eagle buses, and have technical expertise, have moved on to FB.

So, our future does not look good.

Jim

Nothing personal, but I am one of th three people on the planet that is not on FB and I never will be. That means if the forum migrates there, I'm not making the journey with it. Some years ago I used to help out on an Alfa Romeo forum but I'm no computer genius. That said, there are things I can do once trained. No way do I want to see this go away as it's The Best Bus Going, to quote an old Trailways advertising slogan.


Joe

Love Kitty

Joe, thank you for being such a strong contributor to our forum. I only wish that other folks with a wealth of knowledge about Eagles would participate a bit more in our group, but that is probably wishful thinking. Many of those with so much knowledge (and shared that information in the past) have moved on to other phases of their life or have chosen not to participate any more.

I participate in other non-bus forums that are very active. That said, the population of those forums is often very large.

When you reflect on the fact that we are a very focused group (Eagle bus conversions) and that our population is relatively small, maybe my expectations are unrealistic.

Like so many physical things (homes/specialty cars/buses/etc) there seems to be a trend towards younger folks getting involved. Many Eagle owners have quite a few years under their belt and are selling to younger folks. Many of the younger folks do not have experience/knowledge about their new-to-them Eagle. Our forum has a wealth of information that they can benefit from. I just hope that this information/forum will live into the future for the new owners.

Jim

Thanks, Jim!!!

I'm not quite in my 70's but I'm not that far behind you. I would suspect that pretty much everyone that got Eagle up and running in the 50's and 60's has gone to their reward by now. I'm lucky to have met quite a few of them including an interview with Maurice E. Moore, the man that started it all.

Here's a copy of a PM I just sent to someone on here. Since there's no personal info in it, I'll share it with everyone...

"Thanks for the offer, but as I didn't get an answer from them (Bombardier) when I wrote them about two months ago, I don't think it's really necessary. La Brugeoise et Nivelles/BN was bought out by Bombardier some years ago. I think that Bombardier has no interest in the historical aspects of it's predecessor companies because that adds nothing to their bottom line. Also, it's looking like Bombardier's Belgian operations will close in the next few years. They have an order for about 450 double deck railcars for the Belgian Railways and that is strongly expected to be the end of it. Bombardier has bigger factories in France and Germany so I guess they see no reason to keep the smaller one here going after this order is complete. Renault-Nissan, GM, Ford and Caterpillar have all closed factories here in the past 20 years. They say wage rates are higher here but the other side of the coin is that productivity is also higher here than anywhere else in Europe. VW nearly closed it's factory here but the Audi A1 is made there now and a new SUV will soon enter production so the picture is not totally dark.

And for what it's worth, La Brugeoise et Nivelles/BN built hundreds of PCC trams (street cars) from the mid-40's into the 80's for the cities of Brussels, Antwerp and Gent in Belgium plus The Hague in Holland. There were also 204 GM locomotives in the 60's for the Belgian Railways and some are still running in Infrastructure service today so there is a very strong historical connection between BN and American transportation equipment.

Too bad it will end in the next few years.

Let me know if there's something I can do in the future.


Joe

It is a new generation of Eagle owners now for sure Jim,on F/B they can post and save files and photos are so darn easy there.
I read files there (F/B) I know came from this site.I hope this site survives you put a lot of time and work into this site but it seems lately like one is only talking to himself here, everyone is on F/B lol even Boomer.
One good thing about the F/B page is you have design engineers,plant workers, supervisors and salesman's that all worked for Eagle,Continental,entertainer converters,Greyhound and others they can answer anything you throw out there about a Eagle

Well Jim for what my 2cents is worth lve found this
Site to be very informative and have gone into
Tech archives and found information that was
Very helpful
I am fairly new to the Eagle coach family
And have found that the people are a pretty good bunch

I for one hope that this site lasts for many years to come
And if I can help at all let me know what u need


Thanks again for all of the help