PowerTrac Visit Two

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We flew into Roanoke (ROA) and rented a car to drive to Tazewell, VA. Beautiful drive over the mountains (highway 16) as we are familiar with mountain driving. Weather was perfect and appeared it has been a very wet summer as the vegetation was lush and green.
Entered the industrial park the next morning to visit PowerTrac facility. This is the entrance sign as you enter the industrial park.
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This is the new building still under construction with PowerTrac name on the side. The new building will be the corporate headquarters and showroom for all PowerTac products. This should be open by late fall.
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This aerial view picture shows the many buildings owned by CLA (parent company of PowerTrac). This is a family owned and operated company with PowerTrac one of the star performers.
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Just prior to our tour of the manufacturing facility. Kristie (Sales Manager) and my wife Sandi. The tour was a highlight of our visit and I strongly encourage everyone to make this visit.
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A shot of the 400 series tractors. This is just a small part of one of the buildings which house the finished products. These are tractors ready for delivery or sale.
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A shot of the 1400 series tractors ready for delivery or sale. I only took pictures of a few products as there were long lines of tractors of all descriptions ready for sale or pickup.

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This picture shows only one of a number of racks which hold attachments ready for sale. These racks were a half block long and filled with finished products.
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This shot shows a little of the parts department. Again large racks holding the many products available to support PowerTrac owners.
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Another shot of the parts and assembly area. PowerTrac produces the attachments from large sheets of steel within this facility. I saw a number of pallets with buckets, forks and other attachments which had been welded together and waiting to be painted.
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Another shot of the parts area. I was impressed with the orderly and very clean production facilities.
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Here is a shot of myself and Scott (sales) taking the tour.

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Current production was on the 1400 line. They produce at a given time 5 to 10 units within a series. All tractors are hand made from bottom to top.
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Terry (Maintenance Manager) going over the different areas of the 425 with me. This included engine, hydraulics, servicing and operational instruction.
Scott did all the training on tractor operation, attachments and safety.

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Scott going over the 425 with me. Scott had a complete 425 trailer package brought out to the customer testing area prior to my arrival. This had almost all of the attachments on hand for me to test out as I wished.
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Here I am testing the 4 n 1 bucket (5 cu). I had originally decided on the 5cu bucket but when I tested the 4 n 1 bucket the switch was made.
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Here I am testing the minihoe. Had no preconceived ideas on what this attachment would be like. After testing out digging a long trench I was convinced I had to own one.
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This is only one of a number of rock and dirt piles they have set up for customers to play testing machines and attachments. Here I am using the 4 n 1 bucket.
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Here is a shot of Scott demonstrating the 24 inch auger. Very impressive item but at this time I elected to wait until next spring to order the post hole auger system.

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Here is Scott demonstrating the trencher. I was originally going to go with the trencher and wanted to see how well it worked. This is a very impressive attachment
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The final shot of my wife Sandi and the 48 inch mower. We tested this mower deck in very wet heavy grass. The handling and cut was very impressive
Overall our impression of the PowerTrac Company and its employees was very impressive. Everyone was very helpful in answering our questions and guiding us through our requests.
We spent one whole day with their people (half day in testing area and half day in tours, training and paperwork) and went away very pleased.

Tazewell is not an easy place to get to but well worth it.

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