Tandem Plow Trucks

 

Here's a few photos I took during January 2000 of a "gang" of tandem dump trucks. These trucks (Tandems) are hired by the County, and also the State to clear County and State roads in Northern New Jersey. They often stop in this Diner we plow, to get a bite to eat and coffee. I see them there every time it snows, and on this day, I happen to have a camera with me. They line up all the way around the parking lot. Here, there were 7 trucks in all. These trucks were doing a County road. When the trucks that do the State Highway come in, there's at least 12 in all.

This area is saturated with trucking companies that run tandem dump trucks. The roads are also very wide, with some of the highways having 6 lanes in each direction, with a concrete divider down the center. This means all the snow must be moved to the shoulder of the road. Then the shoulder also has to be cleared. This has a lot to do with why tandems are used for plowing. They have the weight to overcome the resistance of 6 lanes worth of snow. The fact that so many contractors with tandems are available, also has a lot to do with why the roads are plowed with tandems. It seems the single axle State and County trucks still do the salting and de-icing applications. In the Northernmost part of NJ, they even use huge loaders from a quarry with side dump buckets, to clear the shoulder, and dump the snow over guardrails.

You can see how many different trucks there are here. There are a few companies that do the plowing. I assume they were all hired as sub contractors by the company that was awarded the contract.

 

Here you can see a few different types of plows they use.

 

You can see the damage from plowing roads on this plow. The cutting edge is very worn down, and should have been replaced already. You can see the chunk missing. I can only assume it takes hitting something very hard, to break a piece off of a 1" thick cutting edge.

 

Here is a prime example of why Site Diagrams are a must - What Lies Beneath The Snow

 

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