The Old Lithgow Trucks

This is an upload which has been a long time coming, taken during the first weeks of my summer holidays back in December 2009. On one stinking hot Wednesday I left home early, riding my bike to a station and caught two trains, taking me across the full length of Sydney and up through the Blue Mountains into the regional city of Lithgow. After a long journey I hit my destination at 9:30am, stepping out into the Lithgow CBD and quickly moved into the residential backstreets. I got worried at first only discovering empty bins, however once I moved further out from the CBD I was pleased to discover a section of laneways and wide streets with garbage and recycling untouched. All I had to do now was wait... and wait I did. It felt like forever cruising around streets, wandering through the local shops and just sitting down somewhere under a tree while the minutes passed. Finally sometime after 11am I heard the first truck make it’s presence known somewhere nearby. Back when I was in Lithgow a bit of an old school service was still in use, consisting of a 240L for garbage and a 60L crate for mixed recycling, both also collected weekly. I had a fair idea that the garbage truck would be a then typical Richards one armer of whatever size with a finger plate lifter. Indeed it was just this, being an ACCO with one of the smallest residential side loader bodies I’ve seen on the back. As for the recycling, I didn’t have the slightest clue on what the truck was, could only speculate from a rear loader to a caged flatbed of some kind. So it was pretty cool seeing what rocked up, being this neat little side loaded Isuzu with a body resembling a normal fully enclosed compactor, even with a hydraulic bubble rear door. It turned out this truck had a dividing wall inside the body to separate the paper and cardboard from the bottles and containers which were sorted at the kerb. Once I discovered both trucks working in the same little area, I was back and forth between them getting photos and videos as they came past. Then once things were starting to slowly wrap up for the day, a second garbage and recycling truck rocked up and helped finish off the work. So during this video we see all four trucks collecting at some point, plus we watch the pairs of trucks head off right at the end of the video. Then that was it for me, I made the lengthy trip back and got home sometime in the late afternoon. Lots of time and travel for only two types of trucks (I hoped to get clean-up too), but I reckon it was worth it, also being the first JR Richards trucks I got. Noting the title, these are the trucks previously used in Lithgow - now residents have two 240Ls for garbage and recycling which are collected by normal full size side loaders. This single video was originally going to be 3 separate uploads, but I figured it would be better combining them into one. Forgive the unsteady picture at times too, the flies were proving to be a pest. I hope the full day of effort to bring this action is appreciated :D