Although Shelvoke & Drewry and Dennis Brothers are probably considered by most to be the titans of British Refuse collection vehicles, the name of Eagle Engineering surely deserves to be included as well. A maker of collection bodies (and not truck chassis, as with the SD and Dennis), Eagle was one of the most innovative companies with the widest varieties of equipment. And when it comes to compression bodies, they were definitively the pre-war leader in engineering.
The firm was founded in 1908 by R.G. Palmer, initially as an engine manufacturer, but later moved toward building all manner of municipal truck bodies and equipment. Refuse collection bodies were among the product line, first with horse-drawn bodies and then motorized (on proprietary chassis) including enclosed tippers, barrier loaders, rotary "dustless" bodies and moving floor types.
EAGLE PACTUM
Introduced in 1936, the Pactum was a groundbreaking design, and probably the first hydraulic side loader, and the first hydraulic 'half-pack' body in regular production. Refuse was loaded in the front of the body through side doors, and pushed rearward by a compressor plate. A roof-mounted hydraulic ram provided the power, and discharge was by tipping.
Pactum front-mounted compressor plate
Pactum tipping gear
EAGLE COMPRESSMORE
Also in 1936, Eagle introduced the Compressmore, which was to become its most popular body, and enjoyed a production run spanning more than 30 years. Outwardly, the Compressmore looked very much like a typical barrier-type van of the period. Barrier loaders employed an internal partition, which was placed at the front of the body at the beginning of the load, over which the refuse was loaded. Crewmen would have to step up and enter the body with each barrel, and the barrier was manually moved back as the front of the body was filled.
With the Compressmore, Eagle took the barrier and connected it to a sliding trolley arrangement mounted in the roof, and powered by a single hydraulic cylinder. No longer did the crew need to walk into the body; they merely emptied their barrels over the barrier (positioned at the rear of the body), and the barrier was then powered forward periodically to push the refuse into the body and compress it. A hinged door could be folded up to keep refuse from spilling over the barrier during compression. Like the Pactum, discharge was by tipping, with the barrier ram swung upwardly and out of the way. The simple and efficient packer was just right for the times, and relatively inexpensive in relation to its performance and ease of operation and maintenance.
1938 Eagle adverts: 2-speed moving floor body (left) and Compressmore packer
Compressmore packer operation
COMPRESSMORE EJECTOR
In 1938, the Compressmore made history by becoming the first rear-loading packer body with hydraulic-ejection discharge (UK patent No. 515,642). Considering how few companies were actually building packer bodies in 1938, this was a remarkable development. In addition to the Compressmore sliding trolley packer blade, a sloped plate was placed at the front of the body and powered by a telescopic ram. The ejector model does not appear to have been produced in great numbers, probably owing to its added expense (low cost being one of Eagle's virtues), and the fact that the Compressmore's relatively light 2:1 compaction ratio did not warrant that much unloading power. Regardless, it was a great advancement and foreshadowed future refuse body design by two decades.
Compressmore ejector at the dump: no tipping needed to unload
Compressmore tipper with binlift, used to collect refuse at the Vauxhall Motors factory
Paladin binlift was optional. Hand-loading was still possible through rear doors on this model
1960s Compressmore on a Bedford TK series tilt-cab
Video: Compressmore with low-dumping Paladin bin at a 1960s motor show Courtesy of Michel Ferro
The popular KUKA 215 "Shark" with its rotating internal drum, was sold for a time in England as the Eagle Speedyload, shown here circa 1961 on a Seddon chassis.
