Garbage Trucks: Crown Disposal
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- čas přidán 20. 05. 2015
- A long time coming, here's a bit of a tribute video to the old Crown Disposal of Sun Valley, CA, now Recology Los Angeles.
We start with a personal favorite, the Smart Trucks Systems (STS) K7000. The body certainly lives up to it's name, a very smart design. Low profile, light weight, and quick. It features a half height packer blade with follower panel like the venerable Amrep Octo, a clever packer slide/track setup, a generously curved, brace-free body built with just regular high-tensile steel, I could wax lyrical for days. And it looks really really REALLY cool to boot. Hopefully I'll have a more in depth video featuring an STS in the near future. This particular example was found bombing around Sun Valley, not too far from the Crown Disposal yard. The driver's skills were seriously impressive, just look how he checks the empty bin at 0:28.
The second truck only makes a brief appearance but is noteworthy nonetheless. This Wittke bodied Crane was formerly a demo truck for Crane Carrier. For a while Crane Carrier was selling Wittke front and manual side loaders as package deals mounted to the LET chassis, sort of in the tradition of their old Integrated Front/Rear/Side Loaders. This truck still proudly displays the all important tare and legal payload figures on the side of the body. The tailgate had the faded remains of graphics advertising Crane Carrier's demonstration program, even an old 1-800 phone number. We found this truck even closer to the Crown yard in Sun Valley.
Last but far from least is one of the many custom Bridgeport Top Pack bodies Crown Disposal is so fond of. It's hard to go through Beverly Hills on a weekday before noon without seeing one (or five) of these featherweights at work. The packer blade on these top pack bodies spans the full width of the hopper, starting at the top of the body and extending downward roughly 1/3 of the hopper height. A single telescopic packing cylinder is mounted on the cab shield. Each rapid stroke of the packer only clears the upper third of the hopper, with very little in the way of actual compaction. Lower compaction forces allow for a lighter weight body construction, which translates to a very respectable legal payload. You'll notice the body volume is made larger to compensate for the lower density compaction. A full packer cycle takes place at 4:01, the occasional body lift like at 4:26 further helps move trash to the rear of the body. Crown Disposal is/was pretty much the last holdout still running top pack front loaders, and went as far as to build their own custom version in-house just before the Recology buyout. Given the oddity of these top packs and Recology's penchant for mainstream equipment (*cough* Heil *cough*), the fate of these Bridgeports and the custom Crown builds remains to be seen.
All three trucks in the video are on a typical Southern California style front load route. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the vast majority of bins need to be pulled out to the truck. The first two trucks had a single man crew with the driver left to do all the heavy lifting. Outside arm controls alleviate the need for the driver to keep climbing in and out of the cab and make for faster route times. The Beverly Hills routes have 2 men per truck, along with a scout truck/bin spotter pulling bins out of apartment parking garages. After emptying a bin the helper on the front load truck would wheel the bin back underground.
A massive thanks goes out to Zach (0:59) and Bill (1:06) for having me tag along for a week of filming back in February of 2013. These guys went out of their way to make sure I got the ultimate SoCal garbage truck experience. Also as always thanks to all the drivers, Crown's guys are some of the best in the business. Filmed February 11, 2013. - Auta a dopravní prostředky
Wow great video! I will miss these old trucks, in fact I realize how long its been since I've actually seen one of them! The trucks here definitely seem like they have seen better days (esp the 1st one at idol) but those body still look like they could be used for another few years without a problem. An damn, that CCC! I've never seen that from Crown before! Really cool that you were able to document that! And it sounded stellar too. Love the speediness of all of their trucks! Once again awesome job!
SoCalGarbageTrucks Thanks. These aren't too bad, some of the old C&Os were in really rough shape. In any case buyout or not their time had come. Maybe if we're lucky we'll see some Amreps come into the fleet.
Excellent video! Some of the best front load action I've seen. Totally agree that the first driver has some awesome skills. So cool to see him check the can with the forks! Really loved that CCC truck too! I like the speediness of its cycle, in fact, all the trucks were speedy. The third truck has an interesting design. Fantastic job on the video!!
thelyokofannumber1 If I remember correctly, at that particular stop the driver never got out of the cab. He checked the first bin, pulled it out, dumped it, pushed it back, then went to check the second bin, using only deft control of the arms & forks. Thanks!
100% agree with everything you said about the K7000. That is a real beauty. SoCal forks were awesome. Great operator on that truck. I really, really like the CCC Wittke. Awesome Top Pack. Those are so cool. Crown had some cool Dumpsters out in BH. Love the tiny tag axle too. Man that body lift was great. Ya don't see that too often. Awesome stuff George. You found some of Crown's best.
***** Thanks Aaron :) Hopefully Recology won't turn the fleet into a sea of Heil Freedoms, would hate to see Crown go from coolest fleet in SoCal to absolute worst.
Finally! Only took you two years to get this video out! Amazing job as always George.
Had to let the footage age properly in an oak barrel for 27 months.
Thank you for allowing this to maturate properly, allowing a scintillating splendor only you could master George, bravo, bravo. WTF man? ;-)
Such a bummer that with Recology on stage these beautiful trucks are going to be scrapped.
Stuart Alvarez These trucks were getting scrapped no matter what, but at least with Crown we'd have some fascinating custom build top packs replacing them rather than the Heil Freedoms I anticipate Recology will bring into the fleet. But maybe we'll luck out and be surprised with some Amrep Hardox?
Yeah I would love to see that custom built top pack in the Recology colors.
georgewuzheer Hey yesterday I saw a CNG Bridgeport top pack on an Autocar ACX in full Recology livery. I think that you all might be interested in some more top pack variety rather than Heils.
More Top Packs the better! I'm glad to hear they are keeping the trucks going for a tleast a little longer.
2:49 My favorite
Awesome video! I always enjoy your FL videos in LA. This was a nice compilation of the old trucks. The CCC is my fav, haven't seen a Crown truck like that before. Haven't seen the Bridgeport too often either. Very interesting what the driver did @ 0:29 as well
Thanks! I always enjoy making them.
First I gotta say I can't get over the sound of those old Volvos, just got that enjoyable and smooth sound to the engine, suits a garbage truck so well =] Funny seeing Bill walk up for a little in-cab at 1:06 and quickly pull back, clearly didn't expect to see the driver or something scared him away lol Saw the way he popped the lid open in that second clip; the way of a true FL driver, especially on a rainy day! After reading your description the STS sounds like a pretty good body, but I don't really see much of them on here, so are they sort of unique to particular areas? I do like the concept of the top pack with the lighter tare weight, be great for your heavy runs - any idea how much more payload you can achieve compared to a packer? I can imagine the hopper floor would see minimal wear too considering how after you load 1 or 2 bins there's always that layer of garbage acting as padding. Even though you have to run the blade after every dump, you wouldn't really lose any time seeing how quick the cycle is, but I can't see it being as effective when it comes to emptying the bigger containers like an 8yd. This design looks very good with the smooth sides just about all around, Crown Disposal scheme makes it look twice as awesome! Sweet :D
MitchellM15 Bill was hoping for one of his trademark behind the packer blade shots but was fooled by the revving not to pack but to adjust the width of the forks. It's happened a couple other times on camera lol. The STS was one of the many makes confined to the Southern California area by virtue of its light weight design not having yet gained acceptance elsewhere. Just like the various Amreps, Maxons, etc. One exception was a company called Randy's Sanitation in Minneapolis, out in the Midwestern US. As for top packs, I couldn't give you any tare weight or payload numbers. I assume the benefit didn't justify the drawbacks, top packs have really died off. There's the issue of having to constantly run the packer and occasionally tip the body. The bin size limit is valid, but the area these trucks saw use never really used bins much larger than 4yds/3m. Agree about Crown's colors, sadly they're long gone with the Recology buyout.
georgewuzheer hahaha Goes to show no matter how much videoing experience, we all still screw up - I understand that high speed revving was easily mistaken for packing. Brilliant if you can think of any other videos showing him fail like he did, good for a laugh :P Ah ok so didn't exactly manage to hit the spotlights, can only really think of a few companies off the top of my head I've seen them used by on here, one being the old bright orange Waste Resources! When you mention Randy Sanitation I think one of the other boys just got their ASL on video recently. Yeh I couldn't really see these designs handling "dumpster alleys" or three 6yds side by side. Hmm I wonder if we ever got any top packs down here in Oz.
MitchellM15 Waste Resources indeed had/has some, as well as a drop frame version of the ASL you saw from Randy's Sanitation. All their trucks featured "Smart" design, not just the front loader. My beloved NASA also runs one/some, would love to film the crap out of that one.
I think that Recology will keep the Bridgeports, but not the STS or the C&O. I have also wondered why do most Crown disposal trucks have tires that look like All-terrain type?
Stuart Alvarez Those are super single tires for weight savings. Crown Disposal was an early adopter of them, some of the newer super singles I've seen on garbage trucks have less of an "all-terrain" look to them.
The odd pocket spacing on the apartment bins make me wonder... are the forks adjusted completely by eye, or are there multiple set widths that can be selected? I think all the bins here either have bottom slots (all seem to be minimum width) or side pockets (maximum width), so that doesnt seem like itd be an issue...
Infinitely adjustable. No detents or presets or anything. No reason to have them.
I'd think being able to just hit a button to switch to side, bottom, or apartment would be convenient... but i agree that it is in no way necessary.