St. Louis played host to AGG1 Aggregates Academy & Expo and World of Asphalt, drawing 11,500 industry professionals to America’s Center Convention Complex. This year’s show featured a record 230,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space – about 23,000 more than the 2024 event in Nashville.
P&Q caught up with a variety of exhibitors and attendees across the show’s three days, including Smiley Monroe’s Daniel Gillen (left), Curtiz Martin (center) and Morgan Walker. Smiley Monroe touted its Zip-Clip replacement conveyor belt, which is a direct replacement for original endless belts. Zip-Clips can be self-installed within an hour without the need for a service or vulcanizing crew, according to Smiley Monroe.
Volvo Construction Equipment’s Danny Freeman (left) and Mark Mohn also spent some time with P&Q as their company unveiled several developments at AGG1 and World of Asphalt. Among them were the A50 articulated hauler and the L260 wheel loader. The A50 represents a new size class of articulated dump truck, offering a 50-ton payload capacity. The L260, meanwhile, is a two-pass machine delivering fuel efficiency enhancements.
Robert Fasoli (left) and Matthew Fasoli attended the show on behalf of Luff Industries, which showcased technology related to its rollers. Says Mark Kolanos, territory sales manager at Luff: “What we’ve found traditionally in the industry is rubber disc return rollers were cleaning the belt very well, but the center discs of the return rollers were wearing out the quickest out of the components on the roller. … We came up with a solution and now make in-house our own polyurethane discs to help clean the belt. We found that rubber is sort of on the way out and urethane is sort of on the way in.”
Bridgestone Americas representatives, meanwhile, briefed P&Q on the company’s first aggregate tire engineered with the company’s Mastercore technology. Applicable to dump trucks, the new tire features a deeper tread depth and an increased load capacity. It will be manufactured at Bridgestone’s Aiken County (South Carolina) off-the-road plant. Pictured here at AGG1 and World of Asphalt from Bridgestone are (from left) Jason Schonfeld, RC Johnson and Angelica Hedge.
While roaming the convention center’s aisles, the magazine bumped into Knife River Corp.’s Rob Van Til (left) and Jose Pena.
