Out with the old
Butler County, Ohio, has increased the efficiency of its snow and ice control with the addition of four salt trucks to its 15-truck fleet. The county bought the tandem-axle trucks to replace a quartet of 15-year-old, single-axle vehicles that were wearing down. The new trucks can each carry about twice the amount of salt than their predecessors.
Butler County paid approximately $108,500 each for the new trucks. By participating in a cooperative-purchasing program with Ohio, the county bought the cabs and chassis from Warrenville, Ill.-based International Truck and Engine. The county purchased the bodies and other features — such as a light-emitting diode (LED) emergency lighting system — from Devers Truck Equipment, a Trotwood, Ohio-based distributor.
The salt trucks contain 300-horsepower engines that produce 1,050 foot-pounds of torque. Each vehicle also features a Henderson Munibody II — a stainless steel, 12.7 cubic yard body with a built-in salt conveyor and spreader — and a 10-foot-wide snow plow from Monroe, Wis.-based Monroe Truck Equipment.
The new salt trucks, which Butler County used for the first time last winter, make snow and ice control easier in several ways, according to Butler County Engineer Greg Wilkens. First of all, the trucks can carry 15 tons of salt, so road crews do not have to re-load as often as when they were driving the previous trucks.
“That is really important, because over the last 10 years or so, we’ve added a lot of multi-lane highways in our county,” Wilkens says. “So, [the new trucks] have added a lot of needed efficiency to our operation.”
The trucks also are equipped with tire chains that the driver can activate with the flip of a switch without stopping the vehicle. Manual installation of chains on the salt trucks typically takes two people about an hour to complete, Wilkens notes.
The built-in salt conveyors and spreaders increase the efficiency of Butler County’s snow-removal operations as well. By simply pulling a plate over the conveyor, the county can use each vehicle as a dump truck in the non-winter seasons. With the old trucks, the conveyor and spreader were separate components and had to be removed before the vehicles could function as dump trucks.
In addition to increasing efficiency, the new trucks bolster the safety of the road crews, Wilkens says. The vehicles feature air-ride seats that are designed to reduce driver fatigue. “When we’re into plowing operations, we’re running two, 12-hour shifts,” Wilkens says. “Anything we can do to reduce fatigue in that process is better for everybody.”
Plus, the hoods are sloped so that the drivers’ visibility is increased compared with the old trucks, Wilkens says. Finally, the LED emergency lighting system is brighter than traditional systems and increases the likelihood that other drivers will see the often slow-moving trucks in poor-visibility conditions, he says. The lights also last longer than conventional bulbs, he adds.
