Truckin'

Havelock residents may notice two new city trucks doing service on the streets this week.

A new knuckleboom truck and compactor trash truck have arrived to replace two older vehicles high in mileage.

Dan Harbaugh, Havelock public services director, said the new Pac-Mac knuckleboom truck cost the city $126,925. It will be replacing a 2000 model year Freightliner that had 100,000 miles.

"They were hard city miles," Harbaugh said.

The cost estimate to have rebuilt the old truck would have been at least $40,000, he said.

"New one is longer, which means we can stay in the field and serve more homes in one trip," Harbaugh said.

Troy Chance will be leading the crew that works the truck that will be used to pick up old appliances, furniture and yard debris.

"This is a whopper of a truck here," he said.

Harbaugh said the old compactor truck also had about 100,000 miles on it.

"The cost to completely rebuild it was about 50 percent of replacement cost," he said.

The city spent $126,270 for the new compactor, which has a capacity of 34 cubic yards.

Both of the old trucks were built on medium-duty chassis.

"These new trucks are on heavy-duty chassis, and we should get more life out of them," Harbaugh said.