Herkimer County Highway Department

Across the Northeast snow has been falling for weeks now along with the temperatures. With no thaw inducing weather on the horizon the snow is simply refusing to go. When then this happens you have to call out the heavy iron. The machines that can bench the snow making room for more. We call these machines by the name of Walter.

Ryan stopped by the Herkimer County Highway Department a few weeks ago to revisit a place he spent countless hours while growing up. As the grandchild of a county foreman Ryan had complete access to these trucks which we can only assume led to his continuing fascination with snow plows to this very day. There is visual evidence of these days but I’ll spare everyone the embarrassment. Never stored outside and meticulously maintained it’s hard to believe we are looking at 60+ year old trucks. Looking at the blower equipped unit I believe I see fresh paint dribbles on the ground. Ryan tells us it a Bros Blowers of equal vintage to the truck it is mounted on.

Walter Snow Fighter

It’s unbelievable the grip Walters head on the snow removal market back in the day. I don’t believe there was a single municipality in New York with fleets larger than two trucks that didn’t have a Walter in the barn. The fact that many still exist on active duty are testaments to quality of these trucks and the workers that brought them to life.

 

*Editors Note* The Mack Truck action promoised on 2/15/15 has been rescheduled to 2/18/15

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4 Responses to Herkimer County Highway Department

  1. Joe says:

    Excellent. Glad to see they are still there.

    Ryan confirmed that the double-winger in the first photo (parked next to the CAT dozer) is the old crew or sedan cab unit, thankfully still around. At one time, this truck had a Roto-Wing on it. Hard to tell from this photo if the second engine is still mounted on the back or not.

    • Eric says:

      Moments before checking your comment I just took a look at the photo of the “crew cab” Walter. What a unique machine.

    • Mike Bartlett says:

      Wow. That crew cab one sure is quite a special Walter. How cool it would be to see it with the rotowing in action. The Bros one is quite a special one too. By the way, the roto-wing one is an AWUS, the one Bros blower one looks like an AGBS, and the B-model with the sander also looks like another AGBS. The big one with the sander is likely an AWUS repowered with a Cummins as it says Snow Fighter on the tag instead of Diesel, but it only has a single pipe.

  2. Ryan says:

    Roto-Wing engine is still mounted!! I was told the wing is out in the yard somewhere.

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