This year’s Cold Comfort saw the launch of the Epoke ‘Beast’, with four machines on order for Lincolnshire County Council already.
The Epoke Sirius Ast 10m3 pre-wet spreader is fitted with the Epoke’s Epomaster X1 control system and mounted to a 32-tonne Mercedes Arocs 4143 8x6 chassis.
A Beast with beauty on the inside and out
The machine also comes with Eposat automated spreading and EpoNav route guidance and is fitted with a Scarab - Riko SPV320 fully hydraulic ‘V’ plough with Kupper plough edges and controlled by the Scarab Smart Can plough control system.
The Beast features a stainless steel unloaded auger system meaning the salt in the hopper is metered by the Epoke dosing mechanism into the auger rather than being pushed through a variable aperture via a conveyor belt.
Chair of the National Winter Service Research Group (NWSRG), and principal maintenance engineer at Lincolnshire County Council, David Davies, told Transport Network said the new augur system should ensure accurate spreading while reducing the amount of salt spillage, which can corrode the vehicle, extending the operating life and reducing overall whole life costs.
His authority takes all its vehicles on a 10-year lease agreement with full maintenance.
With the Beasts' order, the authority hopes to save £4,000 per annum through the new lease and Mr Davies said it should also make savings on some of the routes due to extra salt capacity of the 32-tonne vehicles.
Mr Davies said: ‘The issue for us is we wanted to replace four 6x6 machines, which were Volvo 26 tonne vehicles. We needed big pushers that can handle the Lincolnshire Wolds environment. The problem is with the Euro 6 standards 6x6 Euro 6 vehicles can’t carry the same weight we require.
‘The Beast is an 8x6 Mercedes 32-tonne chassis and is only about one foot longer. So it is a similar size but we can upgrade to a 10m3 body for the salt storage.’
He added Lincolnshire’s order is equipped with multi-angle blades, giving the option of V blades or straight blade, which can be very useful tackling the extra snow in the Wolds.
