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Ahrens Fox in Japan
After some traveling in Japan I found the Tokyo Fire Museum located in Yotsuya a suburb of Tokyo. I just had to get shots of the Ahrens Fox I'm not sure of the model now but it is beautiful it was decommisioned in 1946 just after WW2 This is the only Ahrens in Japan and I believe the only one that Japan ever purchased.
After some traveling in Japan I found the Tokyo Fire Museum located in Yotsuya a suburb of Tokyo. I just had to get shots of the Ahrens Fox I'm not sure of the model now but it is beautiful it was decommisioned in 1946 just after WW2 This is the only Ahrens in Japan and I believe the only one that Japan ever purchased.
The date is 1923. I've never been able to find out what happened to the Foxes in Yokohama and Hakodate, they could still survive somehwere.
One (1921) built for Yokohama was wrecked en route, rebuilt, sold to Stouhghton, Mass., and still survives.
Other foreign Foxes were in Rotterdam, Holland (had 7, 6 survive, I saw two of them when I visited Holland); Sydney, Australia (survives); Cuba (Havana, Sagua LaGrande, and Guines), unable to find out anything due to half a century of non-existant US-Cuban relations; and Valparaiso, Chile (still have).
Two Foxes (a 1916 from Cincinnati and a 1948 from Phillipsburg, NJ) are in Germany, and a 1934 Fox aerial from Worcester, Mass., is in Holland. A piston pump (just the pump) went to a university in German in 1926, never been able to track it down.
Soerabaya, on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) had two Fozxes. One qwas wrecked and rebuilt twice, so it had three different serial numbers over its career. The other was one of only two built with a 5-cylinder inline piston pump (the other is still in Batesville, Indiana). Fate of both Soerabaya Foxes is unknown.
Not really "foreign" but a 1924 Fox ex-Saddle River, NJ, is now in Hawaii, brought there by ship.
Back before the motorized era, Ahrens steam fire engines were sold in the Phillipines and in South Africa. So they have always been a "world traveler."
There was also a 1930 Fox rotary pumper in Stavanger, Norway, scrapped half a century ago.
A centrifugal pumper was built for Nueve Laredo, Mexico in 1948 but never delivered, and was sold in Pennsylvanai instead; it still survives.
Added by Ed Hass on 17 April 2009.
One (1921) built for Yokohama was wrecked en route, rebuilt, sold to Stouhghton, Mass., and still survives.
Other foreign Foxes were in Rotterdam, Holland (had 7, 6 survive, I saw two of them when I visited Holland); Sydney, Australia (survives); Cuba (Havana, Sagua LaGrande, and Guines), unable to find out anything due to half a century of non-existant US-Cuban relations; and Valparaiso, Chile (still have).
Two Foxes (a 1916 from Cincinnati and a 1948 from Phillipsburg, NJ) are in Germany, and a 1934 Fox aerial from Worcester, Mass., is in Holland. A piston pump (just the pump) went to a university in German in 1926, never been able to track it down.
Soerabaya, on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) had two Fozxes. One qwas wrecked and rebuilt twice, so it had three different serial numbers over its career. The other was one of only two built with a 5-cylinder inline piston pump (the other is still in Batesville, Indiana). Fate of both Soerabaya Foxes is unknown.
Not really "foreign" but a 1924 Fox ex-Saddle River, NJ, is now in Hawaii, brought there by ship.
Back before the motorized era, Ahrens steam fire engines were sold in the Phillipines and in South Africa. So they have always been a "world traveler."
There was also a 1930 Fox rotary pumper in Stavanger, Norway, scrapped half a century ago.
A centrifugal pumper was built for Nueve Laredo, Mexico in 1948 but never delivered, and was sold in Pennsylvanai instead; it still survives.
Added by Ed Hass on 17 April 2009.
Update on Japan Foxes, 8/26/2014: The first Ahrens-Fox built for Japan was #764, built in 1919 as a demonstrator for the Japan Automobile Company of Yokohama. It was demonstrated at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Prominent citizens of Hakodate, Japan, witnessed the pump test and apparently bought it on the spot. #764 is still displayed as a museum piece in the Hakodate firehouse (I have a photo of it in 1919 at the Imperial Palace, and I now also have a recent color photo of it at Hakodate). The citizens of Hakodate so liked this first Ahrens-Fox, that they ordered two more: #788 and 789, also sold to them via Japan Automobile Company of Yokohama. #788 was wrecked en route to delivery, returned to the Ahrens-Fox factory and rebuilt as #796 for Stoughton, MA; #796 now belongs to Dr Harvey Carter of Dallas, TX, and I believe is on diaplay at the Dallas Fire Museum. The order for #788 still had to be fulfilled, though, so AF built #1101, and it was delivered to Hakodate in lieu of the wrecked #788/796. I'm pretty sure that it is #1101 that ws wrecked in the Great Hakodate Fire of March 1934 (I recently obtained a 1934 photo of it as a wreck). The fate of #789 is unknown, but presumed scrapped. Although listed in Ahrens-Fox records as Yokohama (because they were built for the sales agency in that city), all three served in Hakodate, not in Yokohama. That is, from 1921 to 1934, there were three Ahrens-Fox piston pumpers parked side by side in the Hakodate fire hall. What a sight that must have been! The final Fox sold in Japan, #1146 for Tokyo in 1923 in response to the devasting Tokyo earthquake andfire of 1923, is the one now in the Tokyo fire museum. Had it not been for the Tokyo quake, it is unlikely this final Japanese Fox would have ever been built, and Hakodate would have remained the only city in Japan to use Ahrens-Fox apparatus (three of them).
Added by Ed Hass on 26 August 2014.
Added by Ed Hass on 26 August 2014.
Ahrens-Fox
I know of 4 other Foxes in Japan. 1 in Hakodate and 3 in Yokohama.
The Tokyo one is a KS2 from 1920 or 1924 (I have two different dates for her) it served at Marunouchi Fire Station. The Fox number is 1146.
Added by Fire995 on 12 April 2007.