Classic Refuse Trucks NEWS

A squad of Pak-Mor barrel trucks get ready to unload, circa 1957.

CRT News Update, Spring 2009

SOUTHERN SIDELOADER SPECIAL EDITION
This edition brings the biggest update since CRT went online in the summer of 2004. There are two major album updates, and three all-new albums with a combined total of 115 new images.

The biggest change is to the Pak-Mor album, which has been completely revised and expanded to nine pages, with 72 new images. This chronological history includes never-before published facts about the man who invented the truck body which would become Pak-Mor, Louis Alexander LeLaurin. The album starts with LeLaurin's early years with the City of San Antonio, to the first refuse packer of 1940, his teaming with his friend Jimmie V. Thurmond and into a pictorial history of fifty years of Pak-Mor. This information was graciously provided by Janet LeLaurin James, who is the granddaughter of Mr. LeLaurin. I would like to sincerely thank her for taking the time locate this information, without which we would have an incomplete picture of the roots of Pak-Mor.

One of Pak-Mor's biggest competitors was the Truxmore Pakker, which broke the 'hydraulic barrier' among barrel trucks in 1960. This album has also had a major overhaul, with 18 new photos covering their thirty year history. I've also added a new Seal-Press album, since they were another Pak-Mor rival, and were located right in San Antonio. They were later absorbed by Tampo Manufacturing, who produced an unusual rear loader under that name in the late sixties. Also are albums from automated systems manufacturer EMCO, the first company to market a 'turn-key' automated collection system in the United States, and Rand Automated Compaction Systems, a short-lived conglomerate of established makes during the 1980's.

These are permanent albums which can be accessed any time by clicking the Photo Albums button on the left hand menu-bar, or you may go directly now by clicking any of the icons below:

Two albums covering restored refuse trucks have been updated, thanks to information sent in by readers. First up is the Local Rubbish featuring the "Dinosaur", an ancient top-pack front loader which was first featured in these pages in 2007. Neil Johnson, plant manager for Spartan Truck Company in Sun Valley sent an e-mail with Spartans web address, which has been added to the CRT Body Database. I asked Neil about Local's truck, and if he could visually confirm if it really was a Spartan. Neil wrote back; "I spoke to Pepe Ramirez our longest serving guy who started in the late seventies. He recognizes the truck as being built at Spartan. He could tell from the design of the rear doors. He mentioned that there is still one operating at Cordova disposal (Also in Sun Valley)."

Gregg Schopp wrote that the 1951 Heil Colecto-Pak, which was for sale by an Iowa dealer, was in fact purchased by Allied Waste and is being restored and will be remounted on a correct vintage truck of its era. It is highly likely that Allied used this body to help create the tooling for the replica released by First Gear models earlier this year. Allied merged with Republic Services in December, 2008.

In a somewhat related story, there is in existence somewhere, an old bucket loader on a 1952 Mack, which was restored by Laidlaw. It is featured in a short YouTube video clip, which was apparently filmed a number of years ago. Allied purchased Laidlaw in 1996, and the current whereabouts of this truck are uncertain. The body appears to be a Pace or Rendispos model, and the body may be newer than 1952. A link to video of this truck may be found at the Restored Trucks page here at CRT.

As a running change, starting in January, I began to integrate some articles that have previously appeared in past CRT News updates into their respective manufacturer albums, or created new albums as warranted. The 'new' albums were Cougar's, Packa-Van, Towner, Pico. The 'updated' albums are portions of Gar Wood, Heil, and Leach. These updates will already be familiar to those who regularly read the news section. However, for reference purposes it will be easier to find information on these models in their respective manufacturer albums, rather than wading through past news updates in the CRT Archive.

I have also been changing the gallery page , which links to all photo albums and feature articles within the site. I have added uniform tables to the page to improve the readability, and eliminated the logo icons from the manufacturer albums to facilitate faster page loading. Banners indicating "new" and "updated" articles will alert the reader to recent changes.

MEMBERS AREA NOW AT FLICKR.COM
As reported in the last edition, our CRT Members Area has been forced to relocate due to the permanent closing of MSN Groups. Following due notification, an informal vote was held during most of January on the bulletin board, where members were given an opportunity to have their say in the selection of a new host for the group. Out of 266 eligible members (I have excluded myself from the voting), sixteen persons cast votes. The vote tally was as follows:

Multiply Groups: 1 vote
Yahoo Groups: 2 votes
Flickr Groups: 6 votes
Flicker and Multiply Groups: 7 votes

As a result of the vote, effective February 3rd, the Members Area has officially moved to Flickr Groups for all message board and member photo posting. All links at the CRT affiliated websites will now point to Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/crt/

Establishing a Flickr Account
Before joining the Members Area, you will need to first establish a Flicker user ID, if you don't already have one. (Note: Yahoo user ID's will also work, since Flicker is owned by Yahoo). Once your user ID is established, you may then post photos to your personal Flickr page, called Your Photostream. If desired, you may also organize your individual photos into sets using the drag-and-drop tools in Oragnizr. There is no storage limit for photos, but individuals are limited to 100MB upload maximum per month. There is no size limit on individual photos! Unlike the old group, there is no need to ever reduce your high quality photos to the 600x400 format; Flickr will reduce the size for thumbnails and browsing ease, but viewers need only to click the "all sizes" button (located above each picture) in order to see the full-size image.

Joining the Members Area at Flickr Groups
Once you have created your own personal Flickr account and uploaded photos to your Photostream, you can then join the group. Just click on the "join" link at the top of the CRT-Flickr Members Area Homepage and you are ready to go. You may then add your refuse-related photos (or sets of photos) directly to the Group Pool, and use the Discussion Board. The overall system works the same as on our YouTube group, which many of you are well acquainted with by now.

Membership is unrestricted, and does not require moderator approval.

What Happened to the Old Group?
In February, the MSN Groups service closed for good. To avoid losing the entire contents of our old group, it has been migrated to an archive at Multiply Groups. This is for reference only, and no new messages or photos should be posted at Multiply. For those of you who may wish to access a past discussion thread or photos that was posted at MSN, here is the the URL:

http://crtmsnarchive.multiply.com/

In an attempt to minimize confusion, the only other place I will link to the Multiply site is in the top of the CRT Archive page, and the top of the CRT Links page. The CRT Archive and Links pages are permanently accessible from the menu bar buttons on the left side of most pages here at CRT.

CLASSIC LEACH 2R PACKMASTER

Readers of the CRT bulletin board at the Members Area will probably remember this truck, which was offered for sale on Ebay in January. Scott Blake, who is one of our regular contributors, informs CRT that he has purchased and is currently in possession of this classic Leach.

The truck is a 1971 International Harvester VCO-190, with an IH V-549 V8 gasoline engine converted to run on propane. It has an Allison automatic transmission and Neway tag axle. The packer is of course the famous Leach 2R Packmaster Pushout, the truck that re-wrote the rules on rear loaders in the 1960's. The body is twenty cubic yards, and has the styling common from 1963-1984.

Scott has driven the truck, and reports it to be in very good shape for its age. Indeed, the ebay photos seemed to indicate just that. This is a former Glendale School District vehicle, and was probably well maintained. We hope to see more of this beauty in the future!

Continued...