City of Anchorage Solid Waste Systems Wittke Curl Fork Front Loader
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2017
- Here is a one of a kind system! This is only used by the City of Anchorage, Alaska and they were early adopters. Originally designed by Dempster in 1955 as their first splash into the front load market, they only advertised it for a year or so before switching to a traditional side pocket and fork method by 1957.
The City invested heavily into this system with thousands of containers. A local metal fabrication shop, Bob's Services Inc, during the 1980's built every singe front loader the City used. They were copies of a Maxon Legal One and the city ran them for many years before switching to the Wittke Starlight in the early 2000's.
In the late 1990’s, the manager over the Solid Waste division started the process of converting the city's large dumpster stock over to the traditional style side fork and as of late 2017, at the time of this filming, they only have about 500 left in service and should have the rest phased out by the end of the year. What is amazing is that many of their "curl-fork" style containers are from 1978 or older! They were built to last and it shows with the minimal up-keep required to keep them in service. I'm sure a lot of this is because of the minimal abuse these containers take in order to service them.
Now you might be thinking to yourself, “it must be really easy to lose containers in the hopper!” I would disagree. The drivers report that losing a container in the hopper is rare. What is more common in the container will over rotate and slam into the back end of the hopper opening. To lock the bars on the container in place, a gravity assisted lock comes down to close the opening on the “claw” portion of the fork. This feature is an added feature to the original design of the Dempster style fork and a logical conclusion to make this system fully usable.
The benefits of this system over the fork/pocket style are quite numerous. With this system, it’s quite easy to pick up containers off uneven ground, which any front load operator will tell you is difficult to master with forks. The container is also self-levelling while being raised until the front hooks lock into the bar on the forks. You’ll also notice that it is relatively quiet when the container is being emptied.
Drawbacks? Container size…maybe? I couldn’t see you picking up a 8 or 10yd container using this system only because you would have the same issue as rear load: it would be long not tall so the balance would be off when you rotate it to empty it. The City used only 3 yd’s and for business that needed larger containers they put in rear load cans.
Enjoy the video; comment, like and share to your hearts content. - Авто та транспорт
Once you see it action, it makes sense how easy this works. Too bad its being phased out, but hats off to you sir, for documenting it so well while it's still around. Photography is excellent, and that Starlight looks sweet in maroon paint.
It makes sense from a logistical standpoint with ease of getting newer containers of varying size to fit specific needs but overall I think this is a very cool, unique and efficient way of collecting dumpsters.
This guy enjoys going to work
Been a front loader for over 35 years and have never seen this! Very cool!
Something we’re not used to seeing anymore, great video!!
Very interesting yet entertaining!
Cool to see yet another unorthodox lift system out there, especially away from the normal FL method, kind of reminds of the Paladin systems on euro RLs. Looks like it allows much more flexibility when getting onto the containers, no need to line up an accurate stab on the pockets. Plenty of length along the forks to lift the container right off at the tip ends instead of needing to drive most of the way onto it, just drops itself straight into the catch hooks upon lift off. Indeed very quiet like you mentioned, couldn't help but notice how smooth and soft the entire cycle was - defeats all that insecure and empty space in the pockets when rotating in/out of the hopper. Beautiful looking truck, looks real nice in that colour. Definitely a great catch, always enjoy this unique equipment, more so when it's disappearing.
Why are the dumpsters so dirty?
Nice FL with different system.
Guessing it has damping system on lift cylinder (oil flow reducers) to stop abusive operators slaming the arms into the stops.
The constant rattle of the gravity claw locks would take some getting used to, sure won't take much to fix.
25 years on FLs in New Zealand
Is there any difference between this, side pockets, and the dumpsters that have pockets on the bottom/underside?
In term of function? No...just different method...a very very old method
Interesting alright. Makes it easy to grab the bins for sure, but if you had one of these bins at a restaurant that filled it with 2000lbs of food slop it would be a lot of strain on those two relatively small points. Also trying to dump an overfill container would be tough. The operator here is dumping the bins very gingerly. If they were stuffed full he'd have garbage all over the canopy (or s&*t catcher as we call it).
Seen it all done love the color what does waste management up there use
Waste Management isn't up here anymore...its 90% Waste Connections
Refuse Truck Media we had waste management here 2 they didn't last very long
Wow the forks on this truck are totally different from the typical Front loader
That sure was interesting to watch. Any idea what's the spare for this truck assuming there is one? Would be really fun to watch an older Wittke collect these if they still have some left. Awesome find!
The city has pretty much turned over their entire FL fleet to this current generation of Wittke trucks...the spare for this is another newer Starlight.
I’m glad there not Common you run the Arms to fast there goes the Bin in the hopper.
No snow it Alaska I thought winter was 365 days a year
Buddy 😂😂😂
It’s so unstable lol
Lobster claws