Fire Engines Photos

One of the few Dennis warwickshire have left. Mainly all scania's now.

Added by Tom on 30 June 2013.

Oh how I loved these, and their sister Rapier. Folk who drove them always had a big grin on their faces. Roadholding and performance were, in my humble opinion, as good as it ever got, or will get.
I remember a certain traffic policeman commenting to me after he had followed us to a major RTA he did not believe the speed I was doing. Asked what it was he said "well, over 85mph for at least five miles". Thing was if it had not been for a white knuckled subby next to me it would have been higher as it still had more in it.
Oh happy days.

Added by John Stott on 30 June 2013.

Our truck for many years at Atherstone Fire Station(from new as I recall), in North Warwickshire. We covered part of the M42 so there were occasions the truck exceeded 80mph. I suspect some of the road users were taken by surprise at the speed it could perform, not at all suggesting that trucks need to be speeding that quickly but it was helpful when you were on the way to a nasty RTA. In London our Volvo's had a top speed of about 75mph but since I worked between Kensington and Wandsworth chances of hitting that sort of speed was zilch, about 50mph was about it. In a built-up area, like London we needed quick acceleration not top speed.
I now work for the New Zealand Fire Service and we currently use Scania (although this will change to MAN trucks soon) and these can reach to 120kmh(about 72mph). Obviously as a responsible driver one drives to the conditions as appropriately. As an afterthought here in Kiwiland the Fire Service do have a policy on the speed we can drive to. Basically it is 25kmh(15mph) above the posted speed limit, except for the State Highways('A' road)and Motorways(multi-lane) where the posted speed limit is 100kmh we can only drive to 105kmh(officially). Obviously if we have good reason to exceed this limit we will (Persons Reported, MVA persons trapped, etc., etc.). Will be interesting to hear of other Brigades with a similar policy.

Added by Sean Yeates on 01 July 2013.

John, the factory had a Rapier with a high ratio differential. On one day, the driver was pulled over by the police for doing 105mph whilst driving back from a demonstration to a brigade!

Added by Barry on 01 July 2013.

what you fail to take into account is the tyres. Doesn't matter what truck you have. tyres are only rated for certain loads and speeds. If you exceed these limits you are endangering your crew and the public. Hate to imagine the carnage it would cause if a front tyre blew out on a machine this size at 85 mph.

Added by Gazza on 01 July 2013.

Gazza, I would not have driven that fast without rated tyres obviously. These machines were in fact capable of more and the brigades I served in used the capabilities offered by them.
Dennis put a lot of time and effort into designing a fire appliance, I trusted their products and research over many years.
I will not get into discussions over safety, we were trained in my day to take risks within safe limits. Facts are only a few occasions allow these kinds of speeds to be reached, usually motorway or airfields. My airfield background taught me the need for fast response, the machines are capable, and with respect the job is about saving life.

Added by John Stott on 01 July 2013.

Well said John, are you not endangering lives by going slower to a persons reported fire/ LTI Gazza? Tyre ratings are an insurance nightmare as was discovered by many FRS. Judgement on safety, or not is a risk assessment to be made at the time. We were always taught that an OIC could not tell a driver anything else other than to slow down, its an individual thing and a fine balance.

Added by Gary Simpson on 01 July 2013.

Many US city fire departments have quite explicit protocols regarding response speeds. The basic concept is that a unit must be able to stop at a controlled intersction (traffic lights) if necessary.

Although fire service vehicles are fully entitled to run red lights, they are required to be able to stop if traffic conditions mandate this. There is also the problem of multiple responding units meeting at right angles at an interesction. Near in mind a downtown first alarm assignment may typically include six or seven fire department units plus three or four police vehicles. These may very easily be dispatched from up to three or four fire stations, so the chances of meeting one another en route can be quite high.

Out in the countryside, volunteer departments tend to be more aggressive. One unfortunate result is that there are a lot of accidents involving responding apparatus - not least tankers, which are very heavy, usually handle poorly and often have marginal braking.

Added by Rob Johnson on 02 July 2013.

The Rapier was without doubt the best handling fire appliance I've ever driven - professionally they range from 1950's Green Goddess through AEC Mercurys Bedford SB's and TK's all the Dennis Range , Shelvokes , Volvos and Scanias and in the preserved arena dates from 1930's centre accelerator Dennis' Leyland Cubs, and again most of the Dennis range along with AEC Regents and Leyland Firemasters.
I've done 90mph plus on the motorway to RTA's and 18 miles in 16 minutes on 'A roads' in the early hours are two that come to mind. Once in a Rapier on an EFADS course we had to drive at 35mph through cones without using the brakes or lifting off the accelerator in the dry then in the wet - it does'nt sound fast until you try it ! Then we had to drive down a disused runway and reach 50 mph then, on the instructors command of 'stop' we had to turn right on full lock (at 50 mph) and do an emergency stop ! In all cases there were absolutly no problems with handling so I think I can say I had every confidence in the superb Dennis Rapier - I always felt I was part of the appliance when driving it as opposed to a pillion passenger' on some other makes ! - I'm told they had a 6th gear but it was 'computer locked out' in the UK ! - unlock this in such as the Netherlands and 116mph was achievable ! Accidents ? I had two in 32 years service - both in Rapiers and both at low speed in towns 30mph and below when on both occassions a motorist pulled out in front of me .

Added by Rick Loudon on 02 July 2013.

Without doubt, the UK should hold their heads in Shame, that our relevant FRS's allowed Dennis to fold as a Fire Appliance builder. Nothing and I mean nothing can or will ever be able to out perform a Dennis Fire engine. Best braking, cornering, straight line speed, total performance. I love it when we have the divisional spare delivered to our station whilst the Scania goes in for a service. Not one driver pulls up at a job without a grin. They are superb. Scania, Volvo, MAN will always be in their shadow.

Added by D.K on 02 July 2013.

Thank you for your comment gents. It pleases me that I am not alone in my respect for these great machines. I have had brief experiences with Scanias, Volvos. et al. A lot with the Bedford TK, which I also admired and the entire RAF and a fair amount of civil aviation types. The Dennis Sabre and Rapier stand out amongst all as a fire appliance for all of the reasons mentioned. In fact they were the only appliances I felt totally at ease with, both as a driver and rider. Years of retained service with both types taught me one thing, there is no substitute, or ever will be.

Added by John Stott on 03 July 2013.

Bearing in mind that I was once interviewed for the job of Managing Director of Dennis, I think the main commercial problem that Dennis had was that the UK market for relatively expensive custom fire engines was just too small. Brigades would just not spend the money, even if the products were so much better than the commercial chassis .

The one and only solution to make Dennis viable would have been to export more aggressively - not only to places like Australia and New Zealand, but also to Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and other markets. The owners (Hestair) just did not have the resources to build up a meaningful export organization, to provide service and parts overseas, so the firm was doomed to fail.

Added by Rob Johnson on 03 July 2013.

At one time or another most of the British Fire Brigades had Dennis Fire Engines, and it seemed in the years leading to the demise quite a few Fire Brigades were still keen to purchase Dennis (there was a business sense of Brigades joining forces to collaboratively purchase to keep costs down). Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Kent, Essex, West Midlands Fire Brigades (to name a few) who had a close relationship with Dennis until the writing was on the wall (or so it seemed) before they all moved on to other chassis' (Scania, Volvo, MAN, etc.). Dennis did sell overseas e.g. Hong Kong, Holland, and New Zealand. So (from my limited knowledge) Dennis seemed to have a strong sector for business in the Fire Industry. I suspect if London Fire Brigade had kept with Dennis (the last Dennis LFB purchased was in the 80's) Dennis may have lingered on today (but who can tell).
You are probably right Rob that Dennis needed to market more aggressively (overseas) but I suspect they certainly tried, although it seems HESTAIR probably did not have an inkling of the potential of Dennis or did not have the pedigree to export in a unique market. One could fault the Government (without sounding too political) for a lacklustre support for their own Industry but that's a hot potato I'm happy to stay away from (they are all chickens and that's as much as you will get out of me).
Here in New Zealand the NZFS do own a number of Dennis trucks (quite a few were customise with their own design, quite radical but user safe) some of which are Sabre, Dagger and Rapier. Interestingly the current crop of trucks are either the most expensive or cheapest on the market (Scania & Iveco respectively) and one could argue that if the NZFS chose Dennis everyone (fire-fighters & management) would have been happy but unfortunately people like me are not involved with the secret squirrel business of evaluating and choosing what is best (in their opinion). I suspect this is not the first time, or will be the last for discussion on the loss of another British Industry that had a future but sadly was gazumped by other forces (whatever they maybe). I still enjoyed speeding at 80mph down the motorway in the Dennis Sabre pictured above, no one can take that away from me, so there.


Added by Sean Yeates on 04 July 2013.

Partially right Rob - but correct me if I'm wrong - for many years Scania were isolated in the UK fire engine market - yes Scotland and Wales had brigades with fleets of Scanias but only a handful in England/NIreland and then mainly on 'specials'!

Did Scania not offer 'incentives'such as 'buy 4 get one free' to fleet managers to flood the UK brigades with their marque ? Also servicing costs/spares were always available from commercial dealerships with 24 hour opening times unlike Dennis.

I believe also the 'Euro 4' engine would not fit into the Rapier chassis without major design changes ? - this was just not viable with the relativley small number being produced.

Added by Rick Loudon on 04 July 2013.

You may have 'hit it on the head' Rick, Dennis had an awful after sales set up, the times I've seen our Brigade Workshop mechanics tearing their hair out due to the inadequacies' of the Dennis department responsible in looking after their clients. Was not unusual for any of our trucks to be 'off the run' longer than was necessary because Dennis could not pull their finger out. I'm sure there was more to it than that but the impression was not good.
Did Dennis get ahead of themselves in developing great Fire Trucks that was beyond their scope to handle in the long term, could be.
Are JDC still operating as a body builder?

Added by Sean Yeates on 05 July 2013.

Dennis fire engine production came to an end as the cabs which were produced by Dennis Eagle at Blackpool were no longer available. At this facility (which used to be the old Duple bus body works)the cabs were manufactured alongside the Dennis Elite Refuse vehicle cabs. The mix was about 800-1000 Elite cabs compared to 35-50 Fire engine cabs a year. In 2007 Dennis Eagle asked for a minimum order of 100 Fire Cabs a year as they were about to receive an order for at least 100 specialist cabs from MAN per year. As Fire Engine sales were not running at a 100 units per year an order could not be placed. Attempts were made to find another manufacturer and a prototype cab was made by a Hungarian manufacturer which was not up to standard.

The MAN business with Dennis Eagle did not turn out as expected and by the time Dennis Eagle reconsidered their position to restart production of fire cabs it was to late.

JDC are still in fire engine body building but are struggling. John Dennis (the grandson of one of the founding Dennis Brothers) retired from the JDC business some time ago. Since then the demand for high specification bodies has decreased because of their cost. A large proportion of the JDC business is now converting mini-buses for local authorities and the assembly of Dennis Dart buses from kits supplied by the Dennis chassis factory just round the corner.

Rick was correct about the demise of the Rapier but there were other factors also. The front axle of the Rapier came from the Renault Magnum truck and supply issues arose with this part.

...and of course the overriding influence of the demise of the Dennis fire engine was that the Guildford factory were no longer their own masters anymore. Being the lesser partner of Alexander-Dennis fire engines stood no chance of survival in a company that has no sentiment and lives by the bottom line...

Added by Barry on 05 July 2013.

It was the production of vehicle cabs which saw the demise of Dennis fire appliances, cabs were supplied by another firm under sub contract. They stopped making them and no-one else could manufacture them at an economically viable price due to the relatively small numbers required. That information was confirmed to me by the sales director at the Dennis works a few weeks ago. Yes Sean, JDC are still going strong just down the road from Dennis (who now concentrate on bus chassis building and are partly owned by Stagecoach owner Sir Brian Souter) I met John Dennis who is the grandson of the original Dennis founder, at the same event (The Dennis Society's AGM)

Added by Barrie Green on 05 July 2013.

Wow, makes all the difference to hear the true reason for Dennis to move away from building Fire Engines, real shame. But business is so unforgiving, is there a realistic possibility that Dennis may come back to building these trucks? Thanks for the information Barry & Barrie.

Added by Sean Yeates on 06 July 2013.

A sort answer to your question Sean.....NO ! afraid not !

Added by Barrie Green on 06 July 2013.

Unfortunately it is very expensive to build small numbers of custom trucks economically, however well designed and engineered they may be. As already noted, the firm ends up dependent on dozens of outside suppliers for so many components, and those suppliers want long production runs and guarantees as to quantities.

The problem of servicing and parts becomes a nightmare when every part is outsourced, when the numbers of vehicles are small, and when the customers are very spread out geographically.

The advantages Scanis had were numerous. They had and still have much larger production volumes, a lot of major components which are built in-house, plus a long-established and a very efficient international parts supply network

They also benefit from an international market for resale of any chassis supplied for fire appliance use in the UK. When authorities started leasing fire appliances, Scania and other internationally represented firms could offer lower lease payments - because the used Scanias could easily be resold in south America or central Europe, with a simple switch-over of steering and controls to left hand drive. A used Dennis was a much less attractive proposition, because servicing and parts availability just did not exist in many of the places the Scanias could go to. The same is true for Mercedes, Iveco, MAN and Volvo too. All of them could offer higher residual values than Dennis, because they all had numerous choices of places to sell the used trucks.

When I worked for Ford, the entire Hong Kong taxi fleet was converted from British Ford Cortinas to Toyota Crown saloons in two years. Toyota offered a lease and buy-back deal that Ford simply could not match, because they had a huge home market to resell the used cars. May be Scania did something similar in Hong Kong to displace Dennis?

Now of course it is all history - and let's be thankful for all those who devote so much time and money to preserving and restoring so many historical Dennis appliances, for we will not see any more new ones.

We should also bear in mind the dozens of US custom fire engine brands which have also disppeared or been bought out - mostly for the same kind of reasons - and be grateful that over here we too have a strong tradition of preserving and restoring these beauties.

Added by Rob Johnson on 08 July 2013.

Cost was the reason Merseyside changed to Scania's the life of a pump was about six years but payed over ten. We got a new chief and the first thing he said was he could get cheaper appliances form Scania. Workshops did not want them as they were tooled up for Dennis but they lost out.

Added by Dave Price on 08 July 2013.

One of the drawbacks from export of used Dennis was also the only real market were countries with right hand drive. Hence New Zealand took a lot, South Africa a few etc.
Now we all know that the American and European habit of driving on the wrong side of the road was a deliberate ploy to do away with Dennis, the rest as they say is history!

Added by John Stott on 08 July 2013.

John - don't forget the impact of this international conspiracy on AC, AEC, Atkinson, Austin, Armstrong-Siddley, Bedford, Bristol, Commer, Dodge, ERF, Foden, Hillman, Humber, Jensen, Karrier, Lanchester, Morris, MG, Maudslay, Riley, Scammel, Seddon, Standard, Sunbeam, Thorneycroft, Triumph, Wolseley and the rest!

But why aren't all our fire engines Japanese nowadays? They are just about the only other country who have the wisdom and foresight to drive on the right side of the road too.

Added by Rob Johnson on 09 July 2013.

Thanks Rob, made me smile! The smaller types like Isuzu did not really meet the "b type" criteria, and bluntly were not around in the time frame to have a look in. That said I had a chance a few years back to give a small Mitsubishi pump the once over, it had been imported "grey". I was very impressed with it overall.
An aside I know but I have used Japanese tractors on my small farm for over 13 years, nothing compares to the quality and reliability of these. I guess that a degree of EU subsidy goes to certain EU makes, not allowed under EU laws but we know it goes on. A truly free market would be an interesting environment for these fellows to operate in!

Added by John Stott on 10 July 2013.

I forgot Albion, BMC, Guy and probably a few others, but the real point is that the entire British motor industry has disappeared. I started out with Ford of Britain and have since worked in management or as a consultant for just about every vehicle manufacturer, but there are very few left in the UK, and they are all foreign-owned.

I agree totally about Japanese products. My family operate only Honda and Toyota cars and SUVs, and we had one 1990 model which lasted fifteen years and did 260, 000 miles.

Of course, some of the Japanese brands are very popular as fire trucks in Australia, but the tariff situation is different. My main point was that if it was only about steering wheels, life could have turned out quite differently!

Added by Rob Johnson on 10 July 2013.

Singapore also bought Sabre till 2003/4, they had around a 20 but most have since retired. Late dad completed his career with Hong Kong Fire Service and of all types he has driven AEC Merryweather, ERF, Toyota Hiace/Benz 614d and various marques of Dennis and more recent Scania, Sabre is the best!! Brisk acceleration and suspension that is suitable for Fire engines. Hong Kong's truck were replaced at around 18-20 years, no buy out deals from Scania, they were replaced when time is up. But allegedly, Scania were bought in when Dennis and Carmichael were unable to design/supply a small initial order with Hydraulic Platform, which they ordered another few batches totaled at 80) that is for one half of the fleet, so they looked at Scania (they already had a handful 32m Snorkel in use).
Scania did have a few mishap and with 2 vehicles written off after months in service, one outside Central HSBC responding to a shout, unheard of in RS, the only solution they provide was to top up the onboard tank to reduce the little tsunami in the water tank and therefore 'swaying'' that causes loss in stability.

But once numbers grew, even pump ladder orders moved to Scania in 2006 and rest is history, they are now the mainstay for pump ladder and hydraulic platform, Scania has also managed to replaced IVECO 140.25/150.25 turntable ladder and foam appliance convert from local Isuzu truck with its own version, therefore standardize the whole fleet altogether, with the help of Rosenbauer bodywork, one stop solution to everything. The RS has completely retired only early this year, two hydraulic platform completed 28 years. Sabres are almost completely retired too, a few were still used for driver training/academy, a few stored but still available for deployment, which reflects the superior handling and survived longer then some earlier Scania.

If someone comes up with the money and buy the design it might live on, but it would remain fairly specialized as fire appliance, any venture into haulage market would unlikely to succeed, just like Foden and ERF, competition even with economies of scale from the dustcart, are fierce -

Kev

Added by Kevin Lo on 20 December 2021.

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