Waste Management - Blue Barrel Disposal in Santa Clarita has a decent size fleet of roughly 65 garbage trucks. The famous blue Amreps from back in the day have brought lots of attention to the yard over the years, and while those have been gone for several years, their fleet has remained relatively interesting with different yard transfers going in and out. Here is some video from over the past couple years of the yard (March 2019 and July 2018). The more interesting trucks appear here:
(0:20) - 408372: This truck was transferred to Sun Valley years ago, and they actually kept it for quite a while, even after the new fleet of trucks for LACOM came in. I had been wondering what happened to it for a while so when it appeared up at Blue Barrel in late 2018/early 2019, I was pretty surprised. Love these trucks and many sound really good. Unfortunately, the area was really tight so the driver didn't push the pedal much.
(0:52) - 206849: These Wittkes were transferred to Blue Barrel in 2011 from the LA Metro yard. There hasn't been too much video of them but some of them actually sound pretty good. Unfortunately I found that out a little too late and missed some of my favorite sounding ones.
(1:20) - 207757: This truck came from Sun Valley right after LA Franchising kicked in and the entire old fleet was wiped out. I thought all the old Macks were gone but this randomly showed up at Blue Barrel one day much to my surprise. For a while, Blue Barrel's commercial fleet was actually like a mini Sun Valley yard (WIttkes and an Amrep Octo FL) so that was pretty cool. You'll get to see him empty some dumpsters at 2:16 in the video.
(1:32) - 207604: Another transfer from Sun Valley. This and its sister unit have been up at Blue Barrel for years now.
(4:06) - 213993: One of their new 520/Amrep FLs. This was a welcomed change for me from all the ACX/Amreps that were purchased. Good sounding truck and I love how clean it looks. Veteran driver Carlos got this truck either the morning of or day before I got this clip.
(4:18) - 101507 & 101524: Two of three Amrep Octo ASLs that Blue Barrel had back in early 2019. 101507 is a transfer from Fresno and 101524 is a transfer from Baldwin Park, and is actually a truck that came by my place several times. They had literally just brought 524 back to life when I got this clip.
(5:17) - 206850: This nicely refurbished Wittke was probably my second favorite FL Blue Barrel (probably favorite FL of theirs now). This was a frontline unit up until the day of or day before I visited so just barely missed it. I think it was due to go on route the next day too.
(5:32) - 206884: This MR/Octo was what got me really into Blue Barrel the past 2 years. After missing Sun Valley's 206722, I had my eyes dead set on catching this thing. It started out as a Hardox FL at GI and was transferred to Blue Barrel in 2011. In December 2015, Blue Barrel sent it to GI to get worked on, and GI ended up doing a body swap on it, taking the old Hardox body off and placing this Octo body on from #206723. This became the very last Octo FL WM has. Lost track of where it's at right now since it was bouncing around between AV and BBD so often.
(9:43) - 207605: This old Sun Valley truck caught my eye with the awesome Mack mudflaps on it. For years, whoever ran it at Sun Valley had it beautifully chromed out too.
(10:49) - 102479: This ex-LA Mack was always a neat truck to me. It did my cousin's house back in the day and I remember the chassis just bleeding LA paint all over.
(11:32) - Old Photos: So the history of waste collection in the Santa Clarita Valley is extremely fascinating. For many years in the 1980s and 1990s, trash was primarily collected by Blue Barrel, Santa Clarita Disposal, and Atlas Disposal. Waste Management started to enter the city and quickly got over 300 customers throughout town, serviced out of Sun Valley (hence why you can find old WMI carts in parts of SC). The city eventually split town into 3 zones between BBD, SCD & Atlas, and after the buyouts in the late 90s, that's how WM and CDS became the 2 haulers in Santa Clarita.
Big thanks to WM's AJ, Larry, and Karla for letting us come by!