Otter Tail County encompasses approximately 2,200 square miles, and its highway department’s seven garages hold 150 pieces of equipment — from plow trucks and motor graders to front-end loaders, tractors, skid loaders, and more. Repairs are performed by in-house mechanics who work out of a single shop in Fergus Falls, often leaving the Otter Tail County Highway Department to rely on an expensive tow service to move large items across the county.
The department has a fleet of deck-over trailers for transporting some equipment, but operators don’t always feel safe while loading larger equipment because of the height of the trailers. To safely transport large equipment, the department would need to add a semitractor and lowboy trailer to its fleet. However, the department’s current budget constraints combined with the rising costs of equipment and materials make buying these items new impossible without making significant cuts elsewhere.
In pursuit of a better solution, Maintenance Superintendent Colby Palmersheim obtained an OPERA grant for $20,000 to develop the Snowplow to Lowboy: a spare snowplow retrofitted with a fifth wheel plate, extending hydraulic hoses, and electrical connections that allow for safe and efficient equipment transport.
From concept to completion
Highway department staff selected a 2002 Volvo plow truck for the device. First, they removed its plow equipment and dump box in-house; employees Stephen Goerdt and Adrion Jennen volunteered 40 hours over the course of two weeks stripping the necessary parts from the unit as well as cleaning the frame. Palmersheim outsourced the installation of the fifth wheel, hydraulics, and wet kit, plus several other modifications to make the unit work as a semitruck, to a local diesel shop.
For the trailer, the team chose a Felling 53- by 9-foot unit with an expected lifespan of 15 to 20 years. Special modifications include extended front ramps to accommodate loading low-clearance equipment; a front center ramp to load rollers and other narrow items; a fully decked floor to maximize usable space; a knuckle boom tray for storing the cribbing used when loading plow trucks; and battery-powered strobe lights to serve as warning lights when the trailer is unhooked. Once the trailer is in service, select drivers will be trained and tested to operate it.
Reduced costs, increased capability
With a total cost of approximately $133,500, this project remained below the estimated purchase price of a new semitractor alone while also providing the department with a new lowboy trailer. In addition to reducing the number of trailering trips and improving operator confidence and safety, the lowboy is expected to reduce reliance on commercial towing services and extend the life of the county’s existing assets.
