As gravel roads fade into the past, public works employees spend less time behind the wheel of a road grader, but a training program run by the University of New Hampshire is keeping them up to speed.

Six of the department’s heavy equipment operators spent much of two days earlier this month learning the mechanics behind the machine – a long, narrow vehicle with a single blade slung underneath to grade the road – and taking turns going through the motions of reconstructing a gravel roadway off of North Main Street.

“We’re down to about 27 miles left of gravel road that we still have to use this technique for,” said David Wholley, operations manager at the DPW. “Typically, modern graders are run quite a bit with GPS units and completely automated. (What we have) is more than antiquated and it’s important to learn the oldschool way of doing it.”

Unlike other types of equipment commonly found in the back lot of the public works facility in town, the grader is not a vehicle that an employee could get the feel for by playing with it during lunch or after work, according to DPW Director Rick Russell.

“A lot of these guys learn how to use the machines in their spare time. (A grader) is a specialized piece of equipment in the construction industry as a whole. The guys can’t get a whole lot of experience under their belts that way,” he said.

“They want to learn and they pay attention. (This training course) teaches them safety first, so they get comfortable with the equipment. They just need time to go out and work the machine.”

Russell, who started out in the construction business, recalled getting taught the ins and outs on a road grader left over from the World War II while he watched his employees take the department’s grader – purchased sometime in the late 1980s – up and down Lemay Road yesterday.

“I remember learning on the old, mechanical one from 1943,” he said with a laugh. “We had strategic places to plant the dynamite if the enemy overran us. It was World War II vintage, old army surplus.”

With the road grader pulling double-duty as an integral part of the department’s snow plan – clearing Route 28 during winter storms – Wholley said it was critical that they make sure more than one individual was comfortable operating the equipment. When the Technology Transfer Center at UNH began offering training courses on the grader two years ago, Wholley was unsuccessful in getting his employees into the courses.

Wholley began talking to training program manager Kathryn Myers and they were able to schedule a session in Salem using the town’s equipment, saving the department money on travel. According to Wholley, each DPW employee enrolled in the class cost the department $120.

“They’re a whole lot more comfortable after just one afternoon,” said George “Butch” Leech, who led the training course. “They’re not so intimidated when they get in the machine.”

Following behind the grader clearing vegetation and rocks off of the road surface, Joe Feoli and Jonathan Graichen said the program allowed them more time to practice on the machine. In an average year, the department has a three- to four-week window in the fall and spring to redo the remaining gravel roads in town, according to Graichen and Feoli.

“Throughout the years, the road program has taken care of (the gravel roads),” he said. “Eventually that grinder will be a thing of the past.”