"It's awesome at throwing snow"
Along Highway 92 between Lycksele and Åsele in Lapland we meet haulier Ruben Gustafsson. He ploughs this route for road maintainer Svevia in his well-kept Volvo FH 540 Tridem fitted with a Hiab cargo shifter and full ploughing equipment from Mählers. A good looking job built by Vemservice in Vemdalenduring the spring of 2016. Despite almost a full year on the road, it still looks spick-and-span.
Ruben started his career in the industry back in 1984 when he began hauling forest machines with his low loader. In 2001, the operation transitioned to special haulage. In 2009, the operation changed once again and this time Ruben made his breakthrough in the contract construction industry and began hauling gravel and maintaining gravel roads during the summers, while the winters were all about snow ploughing. In recent years he’s added asphalt haulage, and today the principal operations are asphalt and snow ploughing. To cope with winters in southern Lapland that can at times be snow rich, Ruben chose to equip his new truck with Mählers DPH3700 high-throw diagonal plough.
“I can plough many more trips now before the ploughed edges begin to build up, and I don’t have to use the wing as much with the DPH on the front of the truck,” Ruben tells us. And sometimes the drifts can get pretty grim along the roads up here, so being able to throw the snow so far from the road is great,” in Ruben’s opinion. He tells us there were some teething problems during the first trips, but that Mählers’ provided great support and after some minor adjustments, the plough is stable and behaves well on the road. “Yep; it works perfectly now and it’s awesome at throwing snow,” says Ruben. Even though we didn’t get as much snow on the day of our visit as the weather forecast promised, we still got to see the plough in operation as road maintainer Svevia called out Ruben for a trip.
“That’s how it is sometimes; the weather reports promise/threaten a lots of snow but when we get out there’s just a bit of blown snow along the road, and other times it’s vice versa. But even though there’s no blizzard, there are often snowdrifts along the ploughed edges that must be cleared away to avoid the spindrift that will otherwise form,” Ruben tells us. He also tells us that he ploughs a great many forestry roads and wonders if Mählers’ latest DPD3700 combination plough would be an even better choice for his needs.
It combines the ability to throw the snow high and far with the ability to switch ploughing angles so you can choose the direction you want the snow to move in. Ruben tells us this would be perfect on forestry roads before we part company just north of Åsele when he turns around to plough in the opposite direction.