Fire Engines Photos

To my eyes, this multicolored and multi striped appearance does nothing for this appliance. Is there any evidence anywhere that this mess actually enhances vehicle safety? One post on this site attributes this brigade’s pale face front end to a Cleveland CFO having been inspired by a visit to FDNY while in the US, but I lived in New York for many years and never saw a single FDNY with a white painted front - although I do know that in the past they briefly experimented with a handful of yellow engines. Apparently, they were not convinced of any benefit, and quickly switched back to good old fashioned red!

Added by Rob Johnson on 27 January 2024.

Rob Cleveland Fire Brigade have been using white painted front's since 1974, so the rumour about them being based on NYFD rigs is false. However, if you've seen the 1974 film Towering Inferno, there are at least 4 White over Red SFFD rigs in shot. This tends to suggest that the Cleveland CFO went to San Francisco rather than New York. I believe FDNY started using White over Red in the 1980's

Added by Christopher Stone on 27 January 2024.

The Cleveland Fire Brigade livery started out with the top half of the cab being painted white. By the 1980s this had shifted to a white front end.

Ed: you can see the half reds here




Added by Neil on 28 January 2024.

I like the white fronts and to be honest think the livery looks quite good. You can always tell a Cleveland machine .
Every man to his own !

Ed: San Francisco here as per above discussion



Added by CraigW on 28 January 2024.

Rochdale fire brigade (Greater Manchester) also had white fronts on their appliances.

Added by Danny Jones on 28 January 2024.

Quite a few US fire services have white over red cabs. This idea started before it was common to fit air conditioning, and as white was more reflective it helped keep the cab a bit cooler in summer. So, it was really a practical step rather than a styling idea.

Even so, lots of fire departments still have solid red trucks, and even black over red ( pioneered in Chicago) is very popular. But fire departments across the 60, 000 fire stations here do have just about every color combination you can imagine. To a large extent, color is rather unimportant because it is usual to festoon every truck with a dozen or more various multicolored warning lights, so they are had to miss - even when painted black!

Added by Rob Johnson on 28 January 2024.

Christopher You are quite right about FDNY going over to red and white cabs in the 80s. I moved there from Chicago in 1983 and the fleet then was a mixture of older all red and new white over red. The thinking behind the change was apparently more to do with visibility from above at incidents at night than anything to do with road safety.

Chicago was black over red, ever since the city bought Ford buggies for the chiefs in the 30s, which had black canvas roofs which were not easily painted - a bit like the Dennis appliances of the early 50s and some others like the Whitson too. They have kept this livery for traditional reasons, which is also why we see all sorts of color schemes here, especially among long standing volunteer fire companies - where traditions die hard!

Added by Rob Johnson on 29 January 2024.

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