Fire Engines Photos

M812TVN was formerly with the Young Firefighters and lived at the back of Stranton, I thought M813TVN had been disposed of ages ago? whilst M225PHN is as far as I know, due to be converted into a support vehicle. I dont know what will happen to M919SVN. All these vehicles were the last Dennis SS types to be delivered to the old Cleveland County fire Brigade before the break up of Cleveland County in 1996. the Emergency Tenders will have been replaced by the new combined P/ETs delivered a coule of years ago.

Added by Chris Hall Teesside on 19 April 2015.

End Of There Service with Cleveland Fire.. To Be Replace WITH WHAT???? Any Fire Brigade doing away with any Odd Ball or De-Funked Money Saving Ideas as Cleveland Love White Elephant's (CARP'S, SMALL FIRE UNIT'S ETC, ETC)

Added by Dave Todd on 25 April 2015.

i agree Dave , cant understand why anyone would take over a lemon and think they could make it work , i assume they have their heads firmly stuck in the sand , but then they have a history , i hope they have a very understanding workshop manager and are not to busy as they will be soon......

Added by Donald Maclean on 03 May 2015.

M225 PHN went ages ago Chris, the old dennis machines as fine as they are, are obselete with parts etc so they should be taken out.

Added by Sue Cook on 21 May 2015.

M225PHN is still parked there 13/07/15 along with M813TVN and M812TVN

Added by on 14 July 2015.

After long service lives M812TVN, M813TVN, M919SVN AND M225PH are going to live on , donated to Harare fire service in Zambia .

Added by on 18 October 2015.

Good news, at least their not getting scrapped and put to good use.

Added by Grant.Melville on 20 October 2015.

News article on the donated Cleveland appliances with an enormous photo can be found by googling -
www.clevelandfire fire-brigade-to-the-rescue-of-african-counterparts


Added by on 21 October 2015.

I think such donations are misguided. Spare parts for this series of Dennis"s are hard to come by here in the U.K. never
mind in Africa.

Added by Dr. B.A. Hutchinson. on 23 October 2015.

I'm not long back from Bucharest Romania and saw a couple ex UK Sabre's in service there, not sure which brigade them came from?

Added by Andy on 26 October 2015.

Dr. Barry: I could not agree more.

Even back when I was interviewed for the job of Managing Director at Dennis after Hestair bought the company, it was so obvious that Dennis had no parts supply infrastructure outside the UK, had never exported very many units anyway - and had no intention of building their business by increasing their overseas sales.

The new owner's focus on milking the UK market by boosting prices and cutting costs was the main reason I did not pursue this job; I felt that their best success formula would be to partner with a German fire appliance builder and go global, to achieve sales volumes which could yield economies of scale in both design and production.

We all know how it turned out for them...

Added by Rob Johnson on 14 July 2017.

A tad scathing of Dennis Mr Johnson, in the huff because you didnt get the post? We will never know, anyway so the company was milking the the UK market? I would like to hear the companies view on that, I cannot see any company milking a market unless they are the only player in that market and Dennis plainly was not, as for cost cutting can you tell me a company that doesn't cut costs? No , i didn't think so, overseas, they did export some I agree but to build up a parts infrastructure for fire appliances worldwide when we all know that units are hundreds rather than tens of thousands and if you have no market share or are starting afresh you cut the cloth accordingly and bearing in mind the lack of worldwide next day from th ebig couriers back then , nowadays nobody carries spares on a shelf , nobody, and where do we get the spares issue from? all the parts barring the cab are proprierty and even then most are available or as the ones still in use all over the world after being exported they use proprierty parts or make them , anyway most parts are available anywhere , cummins engine, tick, no problem, allison auto gearbox tick no problem , rear axle , rockwell perhaps or any other , tick no problem , fire pump , whatever the buyer wants so yes tick no problem , so what spares ?, even the door handles are morris marina and th esabre exterior ones can be made from a bit of sheet if you are anykind of motor engineer I feel your view is a bit slanted , yes there were issues but the company had been bought that many times it never got time to settle , as for the demise lets have a look , first the cab was made elsewhere and the company who made it were told by their new owner(mm I wonder who that was )not to supply unless a ridiculous amount were bought and paid for upfront plus what werethe the opposition up to regarding dennis , all the major chassis players were find billions last year for price fixing ober that last sixteen years and there is more to come , you cannot compete with companies like say scania , buy two get one free chassis to buy market share of the fire brigade market , they priced dennis out of the market , they cheated and were fined but its too late for some british companies who were swallowed up for market share or couldnt compete , it wasnt all dennis fault or ERF , or Foden , or Seddon etc . all gone thanks to dodgy practice , there is more to it than meets the eye

Added by T Mullen on 15 July 2017.

Most of the events you describe occurred long after my decision to walk out of the interview with Hestair.

The issues at that time were in my view principally that Hestair overpaid for the company, that Dennis was too small to enjoy any economies of scale and that they did think their niche in many city and some county fire brigades in Britain was safe. Very delusional and ultimately self-defeating thinking in my opinion.

All of these problems could have had at least a chance of being solved by the right international partnership, but this was radical thinking back then in the early 1970s - too radical for the new owners who were desperate for a quick earnings boost.

Dennis was of course not the only fire appliance manufacturer to fold because it was too small, too reliant on a small market niche, or too weak financially to invest in updated products and manufacturing technology. The industry has consolidated in every country in the World, with dozens of mostly smaller manufacturers dropping out or being bought out - many for some of the reasons you mention.

Added by Rob Johnson on 18 July 2017.

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