Machines | Watts Waste Scania FL

This is a truck which starred on YouTube right around the beginning of my videos, but hasn’t been seen from me since those early uploads close to 8 years ago. This Scania was a 2003 model with a Superior Pak compactor on the back, being the original front loader in the Watts Waste fleet. I don’t know what kind of workload it was subject to during the earlier years of operation, but I’d say it was far less than what it endured during the last years of its life. This truck was primarily used to collect general waste from customers across the northern beaches and into the north shore of Sydney, but over time it ventured out into the rest of Sydney, discovering all the other regions and corners of the entire metropolitan area. When I started at Watts Waste, it worked throughout the night collecting mixed waste and during the day it would go out collecting paper and cardboard, basically doing 24 hours during the week and also pushed through on Saturdays and Sundays. The body itself didn’t experience the hardest work, but the engine and drivetrain were punished, constantly forced to power the truck and drag heavy loads all across Sydney. I’m surprised it lived on as long as it did, but finally early in 2015 the engine gave up with a bang. I still remember the first time I got behind the wheel of this truck to empty a bin in the yard, which was quite a pleasant experience! Although after a while I encountered my fair share of problems and frustrations with it, plus heard about all the other breakdowns experienced by the regular driver. I wouldn’t say this was the most reliable truck towards the end and it certainly lost performance when it came to driving power, but it was still pretty sweet to use and a good truck to gain experience with. You’ll see the arms were nice and quick, also operated very smoothly (prior to a joystick change) and you could pack a damn good load if you wanted to. The truck might’ve served better with a bit of a refurb and some TLC, but instead it just got battered more and pushed harder. We see the old front-lift collecting paper and cardboard from a number of schools around Sydney, from Windsor in the north-west to Cronulla in the south-east. A driver was on holidays for a month, so I jumped in this truck each day to do his job, which turned out to be a nightmare with lots of late starts due to night breakdowns and mornings spent going nowhere in traffic. So I spent days during the holidays playing catch-up, which explains why the schools were pretty much deserted in the video. Note some of the school gates out there can be bloody tight to get through and unfortunately on one occasion, I managed to take out the passenger mirror after a long day on the road :/ Also often the paper bins are behind the general waste or in a less accessible spot due to the lower collection frequency, which sometimes proved to be a complete pain. A damn messy job too with all the little bits of paper flying around when the bins get dumped! FYI a few times I thought I’d stow the arms as I drove off in case it looked sweet and I thought it came out kind of cool in the second last clip. Funny watching the compilation myself, with clips where I revved lightly, some where I let rip from excitement, then near the end where I took the bin up too quick - what an amateur hehe