County gets brand new limited edition blade machine

By Nate Pappas
 
The roads of Converse County have a new grader. And it is one of only five in the world.
On Thursday morning (Feb. 19), Converse County Road and Bridge Department unveiled the brand new blade that will be used for road maintenance.
The grader, which one of one five in the world (specifically number three), was given to the county by Caterpillar as part of their 100-year anniversary. 
“It’s just a neat opportunity. There’s only five of these machines worldwide, so to have one of them be able to land in Wyoming with a good partner that we’ve had for many years is just kind of special,” Wyoming Machinery Company’s Dan Holman said.
In addition to the typical features that come with a blade, this one comes also comes with a prototype snow wing that will add to the plowing potential of the base 210 horsepower AWD 150 beast.   
The new blade will be used close to towns in order to show it off, but also will be seen plowing routes to the rural schools as well as a number of other places during the winter. Other times of the year it will be used to blade the hundreds of miles of county roads.
While the machine arrived Thursday, Converse County residents will have to wait just a bit longer to see it in action as they department still needs to put some finishing touches on it.
“We got to finish getting our radio, our communications radio, put in it, our receiver hitch so we can tow the pickups with it. And we have to (add) chain racks for tire chains. We got to outfit it specifically for our use,” Road and Bridge Superintendent Jason Wilkinson said.
He said it should be on the road yet this month or early in March.