Classic Refuse Trucks RAND

Rand Automated Compaction Systems, Inc.
Raleigh, North Carolina

Rand Automated Compaction Systems was a conglomerate formed from established body builders EMCO and Truxmore in the late 1980's. The unchanged EMCO automated side loader bodies became the Rand Champion series. Similarly, the old Truxmore manual side loader was carried over as the the Rand Classic. A rectangular ASL called the Rand Challenger rounded out the lineup, a refugee from the Athey Products Co. and formerly badged as the Athey CWC 300. The Challenger will be discussed further below.

The new venture was short-lived, lasting only through the early 1990s. After that time, Rand exited the industry, and the Rand Classic/Truxmore MSL vanished forever. Only the Rand Champion/EMCO design survives as of this writing. Versions of the old EMCO design are still being produced by Pendpac of Fairview, Oklahoma (Impac SL) and also Southwestern Equipment Company of Justin, Texas (SEC Challenger). SEC's choice of names is confusing, since Challenger was originally applied to Rand's rectangular-bodied ASL.

Left to right; Rand Champion (EMCO), Classic (Truxmore), and Challenger

Truxmore survived briefly as the Rand Classic, virtually unchanged since the 1960's

The old EMCO became the Rand Champion, now built as the Impac by Pendpac and the Challenger by SEC.

THE RAND CHALLENGER

The fully automatic Rand Challenger side loader was descended from the Athey CWC 300. A new twin-cylinder lift could handle round 90-gallon curbside cans or 400-gallon alley containers interchangeably, without manual conversion. Cycle time was 6-10 seconds, with manual or continuous operation of the packer blade. The packer body featured a generous five cubic yard hopper, which was swept by a low partial-pack blade. A secondary panel provided full ejection unloading. Body sizes were 20 or 25 cubic yards.

ORIGINS OF THE RAND CHALLENGER
Rand literature makes no mention of the origin of the Challenger ASL, but it could trace its lineage back to a side loader called the Tite-Pak. The Tite-Pak was first introduced in 1971 by the Helix Corporation of Crown Point, Indiana. In 1973, Helix was bought out by Harsco Industries, parent company of Cobey Waste Control Systems, and became a division of the latter. By 1981, the remains of the old Cobey lineup (including the Tite-Pak) were being produced by Athey Products of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Athey product line included a gripper-arm ASL version of the Tite-Pak called the CWC 300. By mid-decade, Athey had dropped all of the Cobey-designed refuse bodies except for the Tite-Pak side loader (in MSL configuration), which stayed in production through the early 1990s. The Rand Challenger appeared about the same time Athey dropped the CWC 300 from their product line.

Rand Challenger's ancestors: Helix, Cobey and Athey

The fact the Rand Automated Compaction systems and Athey Products were both located in Raleigh may be indicative of some sort of partnership between the firms. The last-known incarnation of the square-bodied Challenger was a version sold by Load-Master in the early 1990's. It is unclear whether Loadmaster actually built the body, or if it was merely a badge-engineered Rand.

A 1991 Loadmaster ASL. Note the Rand control panel in the lower left

4/5/09 (Revised 1/8/12)