It should no longer be a rocky road for Parke Shire Council’s maintenance teams with the state-of-the-art roadworks mainstay, a CAT RM500B Road Reclaimer, arriving in Parkes last week.
The new road mixer is the first of this series to be sold in Australia. The big selling point of the $673,900 mixer is that it reclaims materials when fixing existing roads cutting out the need for any new material. The new mixer will
significantly improve Council’s operations by reducing costs, providing a superior, stronger and durable road base, and allowing rehabilitation of works to be undertaken in a more expedient and environmentally friendly manner.
According to Parkes Shire Council’s Director Works and Services, Ben Howard, gravel supply and carriage is a major cost of road maintenance, while roads are the largest budget expenditure item each year with in excess of 2,000km of sealed and gravel roads across the region managed and maintained by Council.
“Roads are significant to the community as we use them every day,” said Ben. “It is very exciting, as we will not only avoid using contractors, but in time will be able to rent the mixer to other councils.”
Bassem Ibrahim of CAT in Melbourne said Indonesia had purchased 14 of the mixers since its launch in 2015 and there had been no problems so far. Six Council employees will be trained by specialist CAT staff from the US to operate the new mixer and carry out critical functions.