# Vintage vehicles



## electrician123 (Oct 17, 2007)

Anyone have photos of vintage service trucks? Electrical service and phone would be great. Like to see more like this one if anyone has ever seen. Thanks


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## walkerj (May 13, 2007)

Well that's the coolest thing I've seen all week


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## RIVETER (Sep 26, 2009)

electrician123 said:


> Anyone have photos of vintage service trucks? Electrical service and phone would be great. Like to see more like this one if anyone has ever seen. Thanks


Yeah, Ive seen a lot of Mr. Softy trucks re-purposed that way.


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## dawgs (Dec 1, 2007)

Looks like a lineman sticker on the front. Kind of like the Klein tools emblem.

I have an 2002 e250 and a 99 silverado still in my fleet. Is that considered vintage yet?


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## electrician123 (Oct 17, 2007)

Supposedly owned by the Mitchell Maintenance System. These trucks or similar to this were in use by the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) late 60's early 70's. I remember following them around watching them clean and replace street lamps and thinking "what a great job that would be". Some of the guys would actually let you have a burned out "gigantic" lamp bulb. Today the liability would be out of this world. Kind of like the milkman giving a piece of ice and having the kid choke on it. You older guys do remember the milkman? How things change or are kids just dumber now?


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## backstay (Feb 3, 2011)

First crew cab?


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/32316828/
and
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/39536664/

Mitchell is not a subsidiary of the Lift-a-Loft corporation, and they still make those trucks.


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=16&v=FF1cRBPiRZ8


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

On the versions that have the service bay behind the lift, my Dad and I got a contract years ago with PG&E to design and build little mobile washing machines to clean the lenses on the cobra head fixtures. The theory at the time was that they could forestall lamp replacement when the lumens dropped by cleaning the lenses once within each lamp life cycle. So they would start the day with an extra lens, then replace it and while traveling to the next lamp, the dirty lens was being washed, water recycled, filtered etc. the pilot program was for 25 of them, with the eventual program being 1000 for PG&E alone, then whatever orders came as a result of the word spreading.

Ultimately though, they dumped the program. It was cheaper to pay lawyers to change the rules on lumen output to allow for the lamps to stay in for most of their life even though the lumens dropped by 50% in the last 25% of the span.

Service bay version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUnP5yA3-Dc


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## Switched (Dec 23, 2012)

dawgs said:


> Looks like a lineman sticker on the front. Kind of like the Klein tools emblem.
> 
> I have an 2002 e250 and a 99 silverado still in my fleet. Is that considered vintage yet?


If it is... Then I am a collector!:laughing:


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## electrician123 (Oct 17, 2007)

I wondered if they would still make a "van" type platform truck...something that fits in a Freightliner or Mercedes van. I can see the advantage to working off a platform as opposed to a bucket. They use a Lampliter style Norstar bucket truck now for street lighting service around here. I didn't mention the Mitchell Lift-a-Loft connection but I did see an article that had mentioned Mitchell became Lift-a-Loft. Thanks for the video the newspaper article wouldn't open for me.


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