Fire Engines Photos

20 years old and still looking good , puts moderns to shame really , todays throw away society bins them at 12 years less in some places , astonishing

Added by Jay on 13 September 2014.

I joined berks and reading fire brigade in 1966 this was the engine I went to my first fire also first fire engine I drove and attended many incidents in my twenty years serving at Faringdon.

Added by Peter on 27 March 2017.

Another 1950s Commer with no front doors...

The body builder even kept the front step, supplied by Commer to access the front seats, while constructing the cab without any front doors!

This was by no means the only Commer fire appliance which "lost" its front doors, but I never understood the sense of doing this...

My home town fire brigade had two Commer water tenders of this series, one bodied by Whitson and the other by Carmichael. Both of these had front doors, which meant that BA sets, lamps and other small gear could be stored between the front and rear seats, just like their Dennis F 12 pump escape.

Suppressing the front doors meant - as can be seen in this photo - having to leave this useful area empty, so the DPO and OIC could clamber in and out using the rear doors.

I know the slant six engine (designed originally for luxury coaches) afforded a low floor between the front seats, but getting rid of perfectly good and especially easy front door access did not ever strike me as very brilliant!

Added by Rob Johnson on 11 April 2019.

It's funny Rob this is obviously one of your 'Bete Noire's but AFAIK no serving firemen have moaned about lack of front doors on these older machines on here. I have a feeling I may soon stand corrected!


Added by CraigW on 25 April 2019.

Craig: I think they are probably all retired by now.

For some reason, which I still can't understand, lots of British fire engines had these two door cabs. They included nearly every Bedford until the TK was introduced, all of the post 1957 AECs until the Ergomatic cab came along and quite a few others including some Dodges.

As far as I know the only other country which - for whatever reason - built their crew cab fire trucks with only two doors was Finland. The rest of the World had four or more, except for North America, where the canopy cab with an open rear cab was commonplace, and Australia and New Zealand, where local body builders sometimes copied this American idea.

Even the famous Green Goddess emergency pumps were two door designs, although the original Home Office prototype had four. The reason the four door design was not approved in this case was cost, and that was also true of some Commers, with actual quotes I have unearthed in the case of the Alfred Miles Commers supplied to Gloucestershire.

One reason we managed to sell the first D series Fords to them was the ease of access compared to their two door Commers, but maintenance costs were the main reason.

Added by Rob Johnson on 30 April 2019.

Yes Rob I meant firemen who had used them in the past and purposely said firemen in this PC age as there were no fire women back in 50s and 60s AFAIK.
Suppose the Green Goddess's were never envisaged as quick response first attack machines .
BTW I am beginning to think we are two people commenting in an empty vessel !

Added by CraigW on 02 May 2019.

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