If you’re driving around in the snowy weather, then you may have already come across Emcon’s new snow clearing machine.
The machine is a trailer, which attaches to a plow truck and can clear not only the lane that the truck is driving but also the sections where a passing lane appears.
It does this by swinging out, using hydraulics and controls in the truck.
“We had it over in the Birchbank area for two months,” says Ken Lawson, operations manager at Emcon “It’s new to Grand Forks, and … it’s one of the first ones in B.C.”
Lawson says that Emcon bought three of the machines to test them out.
“We have one in this area, one in the Vancouver Island division and one up in Revelstoke.”
Lawson says that the benefits of having the trailer is the increased capacity of plowing in one pass rather than the regular multiple passes the plow truck would have to make without the trailer.
“As opposed to a truck that just does one lane, this does two in one pass,” he says.
As the trailer shifts to the right, the wheels stay straight and it blocks both passing lanes.
“So nobody comes up beside it,” Lawson says. “No pilot vehicle required.”
The machine can be partially deployed to suit the amount of road that needs to be plowed.
“If you just want an extra two feet, it does that,” he adds. “You can have it out as far as you want.”
The trailer fits on any regular plow truck.
“Emcon’s always looking for new and innovative ideas to improve efficiency,” Lawson says. “It allows us to give a better service.”