LOUISVILLE, Ky., March 9, 2010 - Matt Maskey let out a sigh of relief when the winter blast of 2010 skirted Louisville, moving to the northeast - paralyzing Washington, D.C., and neighboring states with more than 2 feet of snow.
"Not that we weren't ready," says Maskey, fleet administrator for the Metro Fleet Service division of the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government Public Works and Assets Department, which maintains almost 3,000 miles of two-lane roadway. "In fact, we got a good blast for our area: 5 inches. It's not much compared to other parts of the country, but the roads still need to be cleared and de-iced. With our new tandem-axles outfitted as snowplows, we were ready."
When the department took delivery of 13 Kenworth T470s from Peterson Kenworth - Louisville in December 2009, it became one of the first combined city-county government agencies to operate the vehicle, which was introduced last year. The T470 has a gross vehicle weight rating (GVW) ranging from a heavy Class 7 vehicle at 33,000 lbs. to a light Class 8 truck at 68,000 lbs. It offers full parent rail extensions, delivering maximum resistance to bending moment (RBM) from one end of the rail to the other. Front axles are rated from 12,000 to 22,000 lbs., single rear axles from 21,000 to 26,000 lbs., and tandem rear axles from 40,000 to 46,000 lbs.
Louisville Metro Government has an agreement with the state of Kentucky to maintain state roadways, so the trucks are assigned to various state routes in the metropolitan area. Each one features full parent rail extensions supporting 12-foot Flink blades; eight also have 1,250-gallon brine tanks to spray de-icing liquid on roads. Equipped with 13-yard dumps, the trucks are specified with Cummins ISL engines rated at 345 hp with 1,150 ft.-lbs. of torque, and driven through Allison automatics. In the off-season, the blades come off and the trucks are used for general dump truck duty, primarily for patching potholes.
"When we learned that we could get T470s with more horsepower than the trucks we were going to replace, we were all very happy, particularly our drivers," Maskey says. "The cabs are airtight, so drivers get a quieter, more comfortable work environment, which is pretty important when they're working long hours."
Kenworth Truck Co. manufactures heavy- and medium-duty trucks. Last year, the company was the first manufacturer to receive EPA's Clean Air Excellence award.
