Take a look at this, it’s a Hino truck that doesn’t cause immediate disgust from naturally ugly looks and a bland white paint job. To be fair the new Hino trucks don’t look all that bad compared to previous generations. Once you slap on a distinctive color scheme, flashing lights and aluminium wheels you have a nice looking work truck. This particular rig belongs to Northland Communications which also runs a single axle Mack Granite MHD. I’m still working on getting a shot of that one.
Just yesterday I came across this Freightliner FC-70 bucket truck and got me thinking about the terminology used to describes these vehicles. Growing up I referred to these trucks as cherry pickers. Like many fruit bearing trees, cherry trees are on the short side of the flora spectrum, often reaching no higher than twenty feet. Maybe if we had towering Sequoia like cherry trees a bucket truck would would make sense but really they seem to be overkill. Checking out the website of Altec, one of the major manufacturers of cherry pickers, neither the name bucket or cherry is to be found. Instead they use the generic term of aerial devices. What name do you use?
This particular Freightliner looks to be a former PPL Truck. It was working with a crew from M.L. Caccamise to button up some of the traffic control signals disrupted by the Connective Corridor work from this past summer. I bet they wish they had finished all their work back during those warm days.