Volvo Construction Equipment's (VCE's) snowfighting motor graders were used to clear snow from highways in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan – which can experience arctic lows of -20° C in winter. "The lighting and visibility on these graders is excellent. As soon as it stops storming, regardless of the time of day or night, we are out working. We couldn't do that with the other grader brands the municipality has owned in the past," says Don Dancey, an operator in the rural municipality of Star City, no
"The lighting and visibility on these graders is excellent. As soon as it stops storming, regardless of the time of day or night, we are out working. We couldn't do that with the other grader brands the municipality has owned in the past," says Don Dancey, an operator in the rural municipality of Star City, north east Saskatchewan.
VCE’s G970B and Volvo G976B all-wheel drive graders have recently been delivered to Saskatchewan motor grader teams.
"The older 970's have served us well. On each machine we put an average of 2,000 hours on yearly between road maintenance in the summer and snow plowing in the winter,” adds Dancey. “We have well over 480km of road to keep open in the winter and we can usually open everything up in a day and a half.”
Efros, another rural muncipality of Saskatchewan, has a population of approximately 480 people and over 640km of roads to maintain and keep open in the most extreme weather. The town’s authorities have bought a pair of Volvo G970 motor graders to tackle the snow. "It's a great machine. It's the best that I have ever operated, and it has lots of power. When you need to move something this grader will do it easily," says Efros grader operator Marcus Elphinstone.
Elphinstone’s partner, Terry Torgerson, is a 33 year veteran motor grader operator. "I also really like this grader for ploughing snow. With the 11-speed transmission I can easily maintain a ploughing speed of 25mph and it has the power and weight necessary when the going gets tough," says Torgerson.
A few kilometres down the road Reeve Council, of the rural municipality of Star City, has just placed an order with Eric Katarey and Redhead Equipment for two new VCE motor graders to replace its ageing Volvo G970 fleet.
In northeast Saskatchewan alone there are over 46 rural municipalities and more than 100 motor graders owned, the majority of them said to be sporting Volvo branding.
