Page 6
Page 22
Page 43
AMTA to debut new office an training facility at Edmonton airport in 2018.
B.C café brings a feeling of home to those on the road.
Utility Trailer Manufacturing has good 2016, expects slight downturn this year.
New digs
Somewhere else
MARCH 2017 VOLUME 28, ISSUE 2
Business is good
Reach us at our Western Canada news bureau Contact Derek Clouthier Derek@Newcom.ca or call 403-969-1506
WWW.TRUCKWEST.CA
RETAIL ING IS ADVERT 9PAGES 2
38
A truck driver’s best friend? Woman fi ed for bringing her service dog along for the ride By Derek Clouthier
Easy as pie
Western Star ‘transformer’ so simple to operate even this editor could perform under pressure By Derek Clouthier LAS VEGAS, NEVADA It’s not every day you get to hop into a real-life transformer truck and show a Las Vegas audience how it’s done. To be fair, it wasn’t the legendary Optimus Prime I had to transform from a Western Star 5700XE truck to the mechanical movie character, but nevertheless, when you climb your way into the 6900XD MBT-40, multi-body transformer, and are asked to remove the water tank attached to it and pick up and attach a combination flat/dump deck, it can put some out of their comfort zone a little bit. Visiting the Western Star outdoor display during the World of Concrete show in Las Vegas Jan. 18, Mark Neale, account manager for Carco Industries gave me the full tour on the transformer truck, how it was made, what it can do and how a single operator can do it. Carco’s role in the construction of the truck is to start with a bare chasses from Western Star and install and integrate the hydraulics, control system, installa-
TWT March 2017.indd 1
tion of the Palfinger G68 hooklift, as well as other body upgrades to make the vehicle fully functional. Neale said the Palfinger G68 is the currently the largest hooklift on the market, able to lift 68,000 lbs off the ground. I used this hooklift to discard a Klein 8,000 gallon water tank, which was attached to the truck, and pick up and attach a J&J Truck Bodies’ general purpose combination deck/dump truck deck. But we’ll get back to this in a moment. “There’s a standardized format for the mounting,” Neale said. “So the long sills that you see in the front A-frame is built to a standard and you can attach almost any body that you want onto that.” The 6900XD MBT-40 has two power take-off (PTO) packages: one mounted off the transmission that operates the hooklift portion and another that supplies the hydraulic power to the body. “Because this thing here is like the Swiss Army knife of trucks, we need to be able to handle hydraulic and Continued on page 13
Continued on page 15
Careers: 16-20, 24-25 Ad Index: 45
PM40063170
Mark Neale, account manager for Carco, right, and Shane Foreman, product support sales rep for Klein Products, say Western Star’s transformer truck is a true multi-purpose vehicle. Easy as pie
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA There’s a fine line between safety and making reasonable accommodations for employees; a lesson Lucinda Brummitt experienced first-hand when she was let go by a Manitoba trucking company for allowing her service dog to travel with her in-cab while on the road. Landing a driver position in September 2015, Brummitt was fired shortly after by Jade Transport for having her service dog, Mr. Big, ride with her in the truck. Brummitt said the company was aware she had a service dog, and the dog had even accompanied her on several trips with an owner-operator the Winnipeg-based company had used at the time. “We made sure that Jade Transport knew we had my service dog with us in the vehicle, as we were crossing borders and going to chemical plants,” Brummitt said. “We filed a waiver with Jade for our travel. We took Mr. Big on lots of trips totaling over three months of on the road time with no issue.” However, Brummitt was not
2017-02-16 11:31 AM