Fire Engines Photos

Bob,
The original allocation (NFS) was Keighley, and it passed on denationalisation to West Riding of Yorkshire. They sold it to Grimsby (I can't say exactly when off hand), and it's at Grimsby that this photograph was taken.

Added by Ian Moore on 11 December 2008.

Bob, looking through 2 magazines, one with info from John Hughes which includes some of his B/W pictures, it states that following the demise of the NFS in 1948,
the Cardiff City Fire Service was reformed, all wartime stations being closed
and the brigade returning to its one station status at Westgate Street in the
City Centre.
At the time Cardiff's fleet consisted of two Dennis Braidwood style pumps, these
were from mid 1930's, and from the NFS, an Austin K4 EHU, two Fordson 7V ECU's, a
Fordson 7V hose layer, two Austin ATV's etc, etc.In reference to turntables in
use at that time, Cardiff operated two 1942 Leyland Beaver/Merryweather TL's.
These operated well in to the late 1960's, one was registered GXA 76, I don't
know the other, and actually one of the 2 was beleaved to have gone they say into presevation somewhere in Cheshire....I'm still researching GXA 95?.

Added by Pete Matten on 11 December 2008.

Pete,
The other one that Cardiff had post-denationalisation was GXA 79

Added by Ian Moore on 11 December 2008.

According to my records GXA 95 is a Dennis Lancet/Merryweather 100'TL delivered in 1943 as part of the NFS order, and as Ian as already pointed out, was allocated to Keighley in the West Riding

Added by Soren Heeks on 12 December 2008.

Gxa 95 was bought 'secondhand' by grimsby county borough fire brigade in 1972 as a temporary replacement for the dennis f17 metz tl ejv 955 - just visible under the covered wash at peakes lane fire station in grimsby {picture 10598} which was returned to metz in germany for a refurbishment - (it was at that time 17 years old and actually served another 13 years or so, becoming, I believe the oldest tl 'on the run' in england) it was replaced by a dennis df magirus tl erh 679y which managed about 8 years service! as ejv 955 is visible gxa 95 was either just arrived or just replaced but it was definatly around August 1972 that this picture was taken.

i served with a fireman from grimsby who rode gxa 95 to a hotel fire in skegness about 30 miles away in thick fog!!

gxa 95 survives to this day as an exhibit in the donnington collection in leicestershire adjacent to east midlands airport and the m1 motorway


Added by Rick Loudon on 13 December 2008.

I have found references to another of these Dennis TLs in some brigade journals from the early 1980s. GXA 87 was acquired by firemen at Watton, Norfolk on extended loan at this time. It was in need of restoration and some work was done but I don't know what became of it. South West Area, Scotland was given as the brigade where it served.

Added by Chris Wood on 27 December 2008.

GXA95 should have a Meadows 6EX engine inside of it, but in fact it has a six cylinder over head cam Leyland engine! It sits so perfectly inside the engine bay it hardly looks like it was Brigade workshop conversion at some time in the past. Does anyone know how a Dennis came to have a Leyland engine? Are the engines in pre-war Leylands OHC?

Added by Dr. B.A. Hutchinson on 01 August 2010.

Cardiff City Fire Service was still operating a Merryweather Mechanical in 1972 when I transferred to Cardiff from Birmingham as a Fireman. It was an 'open showboat' but don't know the Reg No. Though i'd learned operation on GXA99 (MW Mech)in Brum, I still had to do another course as they didn't like me 'lifting off' in 2nd gear though we'd always done that in Brum!! In Cardiff we also had a 1968 MW Hydraulic TL.

Added by Tony (Taff) Madsen Fm 1565 on 03 June 2014.

Tony, the Cardiff TL you talk about was GLW424. It features on this site in a number of photographs. It lives in my 'shed' along with GXA95.

Added by Barry on 05 June 2014.

Hi Tony. You mention gxa99. I have that in my workshop undergoing restoration and about halfway though. Would like to know of any info you may have on it.

Thanks Steve

Added by Steve Matthews on 12 July 2014.

I have gxa92 in my workshop at Desborough.

Added by Mick Armer on 05 April 2017.

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