Jack of All Trades

A British Columbia contractor’s custom vacuum truck can also clean pipes, hydroexcavate, and even ride the tracks to clean up spills from derailments

Rob Rome likes to think of his Guzzler combination truck as a Swiss Army knife of sorts. It’s an industrial dry vacuum, waterjetting and hydroexcavating truck all in one, and it keeps him on track to diversify his business, Kamloops (B.C.) Jet Vac Ltd.

Rome bought the truck, on a Ford L9000 chassis, in 1999. It was one of about a half-dozen customized trucks Guzzler made in the mid-1990s for a customer that served both municipal and industrial cleaning markets, says John Stafford, sales manager for FS Solutions, which owns Guzzler.

But Rome bumped up the uniqueness a few notches by adding hydroexcavating capability and a hydraulic Hi-Rail conversion package, which transforms the truck into a railroad-ready vehicle that can travel to derailment sites.

“People laughed when I explained all the things I wanted a truck to do,” Rome says. “But I operate in a small market, so I have to be a jack of all trades. On the other hand, there’s not enough business to justify buying separate trucks for waterjetting, industrial vacuum cleaning and hydroexcavating.”

The truck’s dry vacuum includes a Roots 824 blower, made by Dresser Inc. (15 inches Hg at 3,500 cfm), and a 9-cubic-yard debris tank. For pipe cleaning and hydroexcavating, it has a 2,000-gallon water tank and a Pratizolli pump that generates 65 gpm/2,000 psi. “To make room for a water tank, they bulkheaded out a 12-yard debris tank, so there’s a water tank on one side and a debris tank on the other,” Rome says.

Although business shifts from year to year, about 40 percent of current volume comes from industrial dry vacuuming for cement plants, steel mills and sawmills. Another 40 percent comes from railroad work, which involves cleaning and maintaining culverts that run under train tracks and cleaning up after derailments. “We don’t get a lot of derailments, but when we do, it’s quite a bit of work,” Rome says. “Both of Canada’s major railroads meet in Kamloops, and we serve both.”

The remaining 20 percent of the business comes from hydroexcavating, mostly to find buried utility lines or dig test holes for environmental remediation projects. The company also cleans petroleum tanks.

It takes about five minutes to convert the truck from road to rail. A driver positions the truck over rails at a crossing, then lowers the rail wheels hydraulically. The front tires then ride about four inches above the rails while the rear inside tires touch the track. The maximum speed on rails is about 25 mph. “It’s hard to drive in the winter and in rain because the rails get pretty slippery,” Rome says.

The truck represents the heart and soul of Rome’s business, and he intends to keep it as long as it can run. “It’s a very neatly designed machine, and it’s very tough,” he says. “It’s almost 15 years old, and we still use it every day. It just keeps going and going. We baby this thing. I couldn’t live without it, and I don’t know how we’ll ever replace it. Trucks with one specific function can outperform it, but I haven’t seen anything that can do everything that this truck can do.”



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