District 2 photo
By Chris Woodward
District 2 public information officer
District 2 covers a vast amount of territory in north/northeastern California, spanning more than 4,000 miles of highway. District 2 is the second-largest Caltrans district in the state, following District 8 in size, and covers seven counties. Our valleys, foothills and mountains border Oregon to the north, District 3 to the south, and District 1 to the west.
With this large amount of territory to constantly maintain, we decided to sit down with Loren Swenson, highway equipment superintendent for Shop 2, who oversees the maintenance of all the equipment we use here in District 2. Swenson has more than 20 years of service with Caltrans, starting at Headquarters building snowplows and then moving to District 2, promoting to leadworker and spending about 10 years as a supervisor. He has been in his current position for the past four and a half years.
Shop 2 has approximately 770 pieces of equipment, including four- and 10-yard plow trucks, snowblowers, loaders, graders, mowers and sanders and brine sprayers. The shop has a total of 33 mechanics, with some located at the shop on George Drive and others positioned strategically throughout the district, along with a transport driver and office staff who all help with fleet repairs.
District 2 has 37 mountain highway summits of more than 4,000 feet in elevation, which all must have snow removed during the winter months. More than 230 pieces of equipment are used to perform winter operations, which typically last from November through April of each year. Due to the duration of winter and the size of the district, repairs are a constant.
“Winter is rough on the equipment,” says Swenson. “Repairs from winter operations require a lot of welding and fabrication, and a lot of the equipment has tons of hours due to all the lane miles in District 2. Those miles really rack up on our stuff from the distances field maintenance personnel must travel.”
District 2 photo
The equipment comes from different manufacturers and design years. This requires the personnel to be knowledgeable in many areas. There are a lot of hours of training required to be familiar with the equipment, which is mostly computer controlled and difficult to repair. The repairs generally require the use of a diagnostic laptop and software compatible with the equipment, which can cause repairs to take many hours.
Although it might not seem so, summertime is the busier time of the year for Shop 2. This is the time when large repairs are made on much of the fleet.
“We do a lot of quick, temporary repairs during the wintertime to keep equipment up and running,” says Swenson. “In the summertime we tear down and rebuild all the snow removal equipment.”
Grinders, pavers and mowers are also used extensively during the summer months and require a plethora of repairs.
Another vital aspect of Shop 2 is its parts department. This department currently has eight employees, with six serving in Redding and two located in Susanville. The parts department employees work to get the parts for equipment out to the mechanics, and manage approximately $2 million in inventory, ordering from vendors across the country. In recent years, keeping the equipment up with parts has been no small task.
“This is a very difficult job these days due to supply chain issues,” says Swenson. “There’s lots of follow-up or contacting numerous different vendors to try to find pieces or parts needed.”
District 2 Field Maintenance serves as Shop 2’s largest customer. These two units work hand in hand to keep the state highway system in our large district running 24/7, 365 days a year.
Field Maintenance personnel take much pride in the duties they perform and trying to keep the traveling public happy. With that said, Swenson also notes that many equipment repairs are made due to unsafe public driving, especially during the winter months, including rear-end collisions with personnel in equipment and pulling out in front of operators.
“We ask the public to be patient and safe around our operators,” says Swenson. “Some people spend a lot of time trying to make a little better travel time, or driving unsafely around our equipment and personnel, which can and does lead to collisions.”
So when you are thinking about District 2 and our state highway system, be sure to keep our Shop 2 employees in mind. They spend vast amounts of hours and resources in the background to keep our transportation system moving.