The city this past year purchased a new truck for the sewer
department. The replacement truck was
purchased with a tool cabinet box and crane to use in servicing lift
stations. The existing tool cabinet box on
the old sewer truck had seen better days as it was on its third truck chassis. With holes in the tool cabinets we occasionally
lost tools even though it had a series of patches intend to prevent these
problems. It had served its usefulness. But this wasn’t the end of the story.
With creative thinking the public works crew came up with an
idea that created greater benefit out of the existing truck. The story starts with a 2001 one-ton pickup
truck that was used for plowing and had a small dump box installed. This truck was F-350 and was seeing some wear
from 15 years of use. The dump box on
this truck was still useable making it difficult to dispose of when the truck
was replaced several years ago. Keeping this
truck as a backup unit gave the city some redundancy in equipment. It continued to be able to be used for
plowing if needed. It also provided another
truck with a dump box for uses that didn’t require a large dump truck.
The 2008 one-ton truck sewer truck that was being replaced
had a good chassis and engine with limited miles. With the tool cabinet box removed it could be
utilized to replace the old one-ton truck with the dump box. With some effort the public works crew dismantled
the 2008 sewer truck. The tool cabinet
with the crane was removed. The crane
had some worth so the box and the crane were offered on Craig’s List and were
sold for $300. The dump box from the 2001
pickup truck was removed and installed on the 2008 truck chassis. The chassis of the older 2001 truck is now
available for sale. Bids will be received
until December 27th for this truck.
Moving things around provided for greater economy in
resources from these three vehicles. It
provided some revenue in disposing of the equipment, while making the best of
what we had. The Public Works personnel had
a great idea and followed through with it to make it all happen.
