New Off Road Vehicle Trims Trees Along Hard-to-Reach Power Lines to Keep the Lights On
Motorists driving through Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains likely did a double take upon noticing a compact excavator with a long reach deftly trimming branches along a power line supplying electricity to thousands of FirstEnergy customers in Monroe County, part of the company’s Met-Ed service area.
Called a Kwik-Trim, this new vehicle is the first and only one of its kind in use within Met-Ed’s vast 3,300-square-mile service territory. Lewis Tree Service, one of FirstEnergy’s tree-trimming contractors, owns the machine.
Foresters are making the most of the machine’s 53-foot boom tipped with a razor-sharp circular blade, trimming trees along hard-to-access power line corridors to help provide reliable electric service to customers. The Kwik-Trim rides over rough terrain on rubber treads and has a plow to shove aside brush.
“This machine saves us a lot of time and is more efficient in the right applications than our typical set-up, especially in off-road situations and areas where we can leave branches on the ground,” said Samantha Trabosh, a Forestry Specialist with the company.
A typical vegetation management crew is made up of 10 people – tree trimmers aloft in two or three bucket trucks, ground workers clearing and feeding debris through a chipper and flaggers controlling traffic to keep the work zone safe. After completing one section, the crew moves down the road to set up new work zones until the work is complete, which can be time-consuming in rural areas.
The Kwik-Trim offers a streamlined approach, operating primarily in rural or off-road settings along shorter service lines that branch off main power lines, feeding electricity to small clusters of customers. The crew consists of an operator behind the controls, an outside spotter who communicates via a head set with the operator and a small ground crew for any necessary cleanup work.
The Kwik-Trim does not require a flagging crew on roads with wider shoulders because it operates entirely off the roadway.
Off-right-of-way trees are responsible for more than 90% of tree-related electric service interruptions in the Met-Ed service area, and the Kwik-Trim offers the perfect tool to address that problem.
The operator can safely maneuver the small machine into tight spots to zip down branches where bucket trucks can’t go – areas typically reachable only by crews who must hike in and climb trees with their saws.
The Kwik-Trim also makes short work of dead and diseased trees before they lean into or collapse onto utility poles and wires, causing an outage. The operator uses a joystick to rotate the blade horizontally to buzz off trees near their crowns. Ground workers finish the job, dropping the stub with their chainsaws.
If the Kwik-Trim’s pilot proves successful, it may become a more common sight throughout FE PA’s footprint.
“The more we learn, the more we might be able to expand its use to other locations,” Trabosh said.
This year, FE PA is trimming trees in the Monroe County communities of Hamilton Township, New Smithfield Township, Ross Township, Smithfield Township and Stroud Township.