Fire Engines Photos

Bob: Do you happen to know anything about these? I sold loads of Transits when I worked for Ford, and even the 175 did not have the payload capacity to carry very much water...

Added by Rob Johnson on 18 October 2021.

I think they were converted by Somerset Fire Brigade. I would imagine the water carried was minimal. Both went to Avon Fire Brigade in 1974 until closure of the two stations and were then disposed of.

Added by Bristol Bob on 20 October 2021.

Rob, they carried 90 gallons of water and a featherweight removable pump. They were the 35cwt version, which probably does not
mean much to younger viewers!

Added by Bristol Bob on 20 October 2021.

We called it the 175, for 1.75 tons, which - as you mention - is 35 cwt! I was guessing it had to be less than 100 gallons….

Added by Rob Johnson on 21 October 2021.

A similarly conceived light first responder pump is actually still fairly common in Germany, for use by volunteers in small villages which would otherwise be lacking any immediately available first fire response ability. (Germany has more than 20,000 volunteer fire companies with over a million members.) Built into 3.5 ton Mercedes, Opel, Ford or VW vans, these have a similar specification to this old Transit: five seater crew cab, 500 litre water tank, 1000 LPM PP, and a couple of scaling ladders.

The big advantages include low cost, compact size and the fact that it can be driven with a passenger car driving license. On the other hand, it has some obvious limitations but can probably handle quite a decent number of incidents on its own without waiting for reinforcements from further away...I think there may be a few examples on this site ("TSF-W").

Added by Rob Johnson on 06 November 2021.

picture 5869 has a TSF-W (older version) on an Iveco crew cab chassis, which was operated by a volunteer fire company in a village with less than 500 population.

Added by Rob Johnson on 08 November 2021.

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