It has snowed all day and the light snow continues to float down as fine flakes in the cold of January. Soon it’s time to start ploughing Route 761 in the region of Jämtland Hammerdal. The road starting from Route 45 in Lorås and continuing towards the small village of Trekilen, is a so-called Class 4 road.

The Highways Agency state, that for that particular road class, if 3 cms of snow falls, the plough normally has 6 hours in which to plough the distance. 6 hours after the end of snowfall, there may be a maximum of 3 cm of snow on the road.

“So far, they don’t normally have to wait, as I take this when I plough Route 45”, says the haulier Ingemar Andersson, who has a total of about: 170 km one-way to look after for his client Svevia using his Volvo FH540 8×4. The Volvo is one of two industrial construction vehicles in Ingemar’s company, Fjäls Åkeri & Bygg AB, which also has a logging truck and a wheel loader. As the Swedish company name reveals, there is also a construction business involved here. In total, the company employs 11-12 people.

“It can all be a bit much sometimes, but the construction business is taken care of my wife for the most part and I focus more on the haulage company”, continues Ingemar during the short break he takes to allow us to take some pictures of Volvo and Mählers-plough, the DPH high-throw model. The construction business that focuses on turnkey houses and larger housing improvement projects is not more than 6 years old, while the foundations for the haulage section were initiated already in 1910 by Ingemar’s grandfather. The first truck, a Ford-32 was then used to run the so-called jettison wood. After that, Ingemar’s father and uncle took over and a few years later the company was divided, with Ingemar’s father then forming the haulage company Fjäls Åkeri. Ingemar started working for the company in 1988, and in 1992 became a partner, taking over as sole owner in 2005.

“And now my boy runs my timber truck in the company so the inheritance is kept intact”, says Ingemar. Ingemar also tells us that he is happy with Mähler’s new high-throw plough that is well suited to both larger and smaller roads. The only comment made is that it can feel a bit high when clearing bus stops and other smaller areas, but at the same time Ingemar would not want to be without the high sweep when he needs to throw the snow on the narrower roads.

“The DPH runs easily, is stable and behaves quietly. On the smaller and narrower roads like this, I derive a great benefit from the plough lifting the snow over the plough edges”, says Ingemar. January means short days in northern Sweden and during the short time we talked to Ingemar, it had already become dark. We hurry to take a few pictures of him in front of the truck before it’s time to plough the last bit up on the narrow, twisting road towards Trekilen. The darkness and blowing snow quickly hide the blue Volvo and it doesn’t take many seconds before Ingemar completely disappears from our sight. Thankfully, we have a newly-ploughed road to drive on as we head home.