Classic Refuse Trucks LODAL

EVO Side Loader

Above: 1968 Lodal EVO with 8 cubic yard detachable container body

While Dempster and Lodal both marketed "Dumpster Train" front loader/satellite vehicle systems, Lodal took the the concept a step further in 1968 with the remarkable EVO side loader. The new EVO was startlingly different from any other vehicle on the market, and foretold the modernization of refuse equipment that was to come in the next decades.

What truly makes the Evo unique among all other refuse trucks is that it is a unitized, or chassisless design. It is a manufactured as a complete vehicle, integrating body, chassis and cab into one unit. Instead of heavy chassis frame members on to which the body and cab are mounted, unit construction entails strengthening the body at strategic locations so that is basically becomes self-supporting, and needs no framework. One advantage is that weight savings are often realized, allowing for higher legal payloads.

Surprisingly, Lodal was not the first refuse truck maker to offer unitized construction. That honor goes to the Gar Wood T-100. However, the EVO side loader design was a far more practical design, as evidenced by the fact that it remains in production while the T-100 is now merely the answer to a trivia question. Both shared front wheel drive and an automatic transaxle, and the EVO also featured a lower cab and dual controls.

The packer mechanism is a simple reciprocating ram, of the type pioneered by Ochsner and Rey in their pre-war designs. Since the EVO's hopper was essentially part of the frame, it offered exceptional low-loading ease, even compared to drop frame side-loaders like the Shu-Pak. Early EVO'S featured a detachable body, which could be dropped at a central location and exchanged for an empty one, or dumped by a Load-a-matic "Mother Truck" as with the container train system. Later models offered fixed type bodies, like the 17 cubic yard EVO-D 3400 (at right) from the early eighties.

Though the container train system never really caught on in a big way, the EVO has proven itself in the modern era, being well suited for use as a semi-automated one-man loader as the collection industry has trended toward such vehicles. The Lodal bucket loader attachment, Front loader and EVO side loader all remain in production (now at Kingsford), the latter currently available in capacities up to 35 cubic yards.

11/21/04