Fire Engines Photos

This appears identical in livery to those issued to the Isle of Wight. Is that pure co-incidence or did it previously serve there before going to Ireland?

Added by John D on 21 October 2010.

Here We Have Bedford TKG/C.S.V (Crew Safety Vehicle) in the striking livery of brilliant white enhanced by bright red striping. In 1976 HCB Angus commenced trials for a new generation of fire appliances with the emphasis being on Crew Safety Factors, this introduced a completely new style of fire appliance as many of their original products were built on the basis of incorporating the manufacturers or chassis builders front scuttle i.e grill etc this variation of appliances did not and this was the first of the safety appliances to hit British roads in 1976. in line with this new design HCB decided to adopt a new colour to promote the issue of safety and white was elected (a colour used by St Helens some years previous) The Isle Of Wight Fire Brigade, along with Hampshire were two of the first Brigades to take delivery of this type of appliance.
The Chief Fire Officer of The Isle Of Wight was so taken by the colour scheme of the factories demonstrators that he immediately purchased one and placed orders for several more spread over three years in this striking livery, many support vehicles on the island also adopted this livery.
The vehicle shown here was exported to Ireland in the late seventies or possibly the early eighties
it still sported the factory demonstrator colour scheme and was put into operational service with this colour. Cornwall County Fire Brigade also purchased one of these demonstrator models in a similar livery (Cambourne) although this was only an isolated appliance for the county. Hampshire and several other brigades went with the more traditional livery of Red. In 1988 The Isle of Wight abolished this colour scheme in pursuit of the original red and several of these C.S.Vs went through the paint shop and returned to service with 3M high visibility stripping applied. The Islands "Sandown" fire station operated two of these appliances named after royalty (William-Harry) following The Princess of Wales visit to the island. White was the colour however that did this appliance real justice recent months has seen one of these handsome appliances being advertised in the E- Bay Auction House I hope this is of interest a variation applied to the appliance in the photo was the more complete use of embossed alloy (stucco) panelling for the rear bodywork for durability and wear and tear as applied to the Cambourne appliance however The Isle Of Wight went with the full white livery with polished roller shutter lockers.

Added by BOB CARVER on 22 October 2010.

Kent also had a 1978/79 T reg machine in white on trial for a short time against a Dennis RS, it was then sold to East Sussex and repainted red after the brigade decided to go with Dennis.

Added by Phil on 06 February 2011.

I loved the white livery on the Isle of Wight engines, have quite a few old photos from when my dad was in the service, he was at East Cowes station, and they had a Bedford Water Tender like the photo above aswell as an old Bedford Water Carrier. Both were in white, then the pump was repainted red.

I have some digital copies of the photos if anyone is interested.

Added by Keith Morgan on 30 December 2011.

Keith, do please post any Isle of Wight pictures. I loved visiting the stations as a kid on holiday. My favorite was Yarmouth that had a Bedford TK on the run and parked next to it an identical TK with consecutive Reg that was preserved for the Benevolent Fund. The Dennis DS's in white were really special as were the CSV's.

Added by John D on 09 January 2012.

I always thought this cab was one of the most attractive looking of all. The colour scheme is very pretty too, but it somehow does not shout FIRE ENGINE!

Added by Rob Johnson on 14 August 2014.

Nice photos reminds me of when I used to build fire engines at Totton hundreds of years ago

Added by Duncan Hudson on 27 May 2015.

A pity these safety cab appliances did not sell well, because they were more expensive than the units based on existing standard truck chassis cowls with fibreglass, wood framed and aluminium paneled cabs.

Interesting that as early as 1963 Mack were touting their all steel safety cab on the C series custom fire trucks, in recognition of the simple fact that RTAs were the main cause of death and injury to fire service personnel.

Seeing photos of contemporary Dennis appliances from the 1970s coming apart like cereal boxes after accidents, some of which are on this site, it seems very unfortunate that UK fire services did not take this problem very seriously at that time.

Added by Rob Johnson on 05 May 2017.

Camborne in Cornwall is spelt with no “u” in it, as a Cornish Man seeing Camborne spelt as Cambourne can be very upsetting and incidentally Cambourne with an U is in Cambridgeshire.

Added by David Hackett on 24 May 2020.

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