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Leyland Firemaster/Haydon PEST Essex 863YPU
Fire Engine Photos
No: 38240   Contributor:   Year: 2015   Manufacturer: Leyland   Country: United Kingdom
Leyland Firemaster/Haydon PEST Essex 863YPU

Exhibition hall (Olympia, Earls Court c.1960) photo by Norman Tarling. PEST stands for pump emergency salvage tender. Note front mounted 1000gpm pump. 300 gall tank, EPCO hydraulic gear. Based at Colchester. Full details in Fire Engines of Eastern England page 82.
Picture added on 28 January 2015 at 11:17
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863YPU 1961, Leyland Firemaster/Haydons PEST (Pump Emergency Salvage Tender) of Essex County Fire Brigade, Dovercourt Fire Station. One of two identical appliances delivered to Essex County Fire Brigade and originally allocated to Grays (862YPU) and Colchester (863YPU).

Added by Jerry Hepworth on 06 February 2015.
I saw this rare beast tackling a shed fire out in the countryside one late summer day in 1968 - because Essex is not exactly hill country the smoke could literally be seen for miles, and it looked as if it might have been a much more interesting incident.

The photo shows quite clearly how the two door cab had the OIC's seat in the centre, with two side bench seats facing each other for the rest of the crew. This layout enabled everyone to access the center aisle body, like a classic ET of this era, and you can in fact see one man standing back there.

It had a set of back doors, too, just like other ETs in the sixties, but I am surprised they found room for a 300 gallon water tank - were there perhaps actually two smaller ones, either side of the aisle, like Leeds' unique F8s?

Another minor surprise was that the blue beacon was left of centre. Most brigades which did not fit dual beacons tended to have them either in the middle of the roof or on the right side, closer to oncoming traffic.

At the time I thought that using the Firemaster as an ET made a lot of sense, especially as the underfloor engine could easily be accessed from the center aisle, just like the buses for which the chassis was originally designed! Out of the eleven built, two were Darlington's Magirus TL and Wolverhampton's TLP. I believe only one other was an ET, but the rest were all PEs. For obvious reasons, there were no water tenders...

Added by Rob Johnson on 19 July 2017.
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