The centerpiece of the EZ Pack line up for more than 25 years.
By听 Zachary Geroux
Last month we talked about the Hydro EZ Pack designed by William Herpich and how revolutionary the high compaction body was for the time. The 1950s saw the birth of the front loader on the west coast by S. Vincent Bowles Company followed a few years later by Dempster Brothers, Cobey and LoDal on the East Coast. Scrambling to patent everything, Dempster beat Bowles to the patent office on the 鈥渙ver the cab鈥� arms that are so universal on every front loader today. What this did is force other competitors to put straight or 鈥渙ver the wheel鈥� arms on their trucks unless they wanted to pay royalties to Dempster. In the early 1960s Hercules-Galion wanted to start capitalizing on this emerging commercial market, they already had the high compaction body design perfectly suited for this application, just no arms to put on it.
The Answer Is Found
The answer was to come from an unknown inventor, Milton Clar, who had a relationship with Albert Shayne and Shayne Brothers, Inc., a hauler in Washington D.C. Clar鈥檚 initial design, to get around the Dempster patent, fixed the base of the arm at the top of the body rather than the bottom. The arm broke in the middle and resembled a grasshopper leg in the middle of its lifting cycle. Originally patented in 1961, it featured a chain system in the main boom arm to keep the container level as it was being raised and the arm cylinder mounted vertically to push the arm up. His next patent, a year later, replaced the chains with a rod and moved the arm cylinders to the top of the body so that they pulled the arms up. With the rod in the main boom of the arm, it automatically kept the container level throughout the entire lifting and lowering cycle, which was a first in the industry.
When mated to a modified Hydro EZ Pack body, Hercules-Galion now had a high compaction, competitive body to put up against the relatively uncontested Dempster Dumpmaster in the East Coast market. Available in 20, 25 or 30yd models, they were able to handle 1 to 8yd containers and had a manual top door actuated by rods affixed to the arm, which opened as the arms were raised. With most body manufacturers making their own unique container coupling method to ensure customer loyalty, Hercules-Galion used the Dempster side pocket system so anyone who鈥檇 invested into the Dempster dumpsters wouldn鈥檛 have to modify their containers.听 Their front loader proved to be very popular once it was released even though the clearance height was 3 to 4 feet higher than any other body on the market when dumping a container.
Albert Shayne and Dumpmor Systems (later Shayne Brothers Equipment) became the East Coast distributor. Shayne himself was a big name in the industry having been the first president of the Detachable Container Association, a precursor to the National Solid Waste Management Association (now the National Waste & Recycling Association).
Changes and Stormy Clouds on the Horizon
The EZ Pack Front Loader put Hercules-Galion on the map and with the addition of a rear loader, stationary compactors and a roll-off a few years later, they had a complete line up to offer haulers. However, from 1964 to 1965 a Chicago-based company achieved a hostile takeover. The initial plan was to drive the stock price up in hopes of achieving a merger or buy out but the plan fell apart when a single investor liquidated 8,000 shares in 1966, which caused the stock to plummet, halting all trade. At the close of the decade, after the investigation, 16 people including directors and their family members would be convicted of stock manipulation and conspiracy. This led to the sale of the company to Peabody International Company and a rebranding to Peabody-Galion with 鈥淓Z Pack鈥� identifying the refuse arm of the corporation.
In the 1970s, under new ownership, the company would expand into transfer station and trailers, the rear loader would be re-designed twice and the Hydro EZ Pack Side Loader phased out and replaced. However, the front loader would remain unchanged and the center piece of their equipment line up for 24 years until the mid-1980s when it was phased out in favor of a more conventional arm front loader.
Faith In The Proven Design
Designed in 1961 to get around the Dempster patent, that roadblock became non-existent in 1965 when a small builder in New York by the name of Arthur Bausenbach counter-sued Dempster in court and won. The judge in that trial declared the 鈥済ooseneck鈥� arm was a logical solution of the 鈥減rior art鈥� already established in the 1950s by the problems the original straight-arm design presented and therefore un-patentable.
It is a true testament to the faith Hercules-Galion and later Peabody-Galion had in their unique arm that they would keep producing it for more than two decades rather than switch to the emerging industry standard arm. I guess the old saying is true: 鈥淚f it ain鈥檛 broke鈥on鈥檛 fix it!鈥� | WA
Zachary Geroux is a historian, photographer and owner of Refuse Truck Photography. He lives in Western Washington with his wife where he currently works full time for the Air Force and has been driving garbage trucks off and on for the past nine years. He can be reached at [email protected] or visit .
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