Vintage shots from days gone by!

Oooh...aaah...fire truck

 

Aherens-Fox. In my opinion, all fire engines should be painted red.








To my knowledge, the LAFD never had any Aherens-Fox on their roster, why I do not know. Pity. The only A-F rig I ever saw here in SoCal was in the City of Long Beach, CA.

 

LOL ! !


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This old 1923 Seagrave pumper is still on the roster (everyone loves a parade). It was originally stationed at Station 1, in 1923. It's been restored of course, but it has also been updated numerous times while it was still in service. When it was originally delivered to the department, it had solid rubber tires and no windshield. That little cowl under the windshield was not there either when it was delivered. The number on the hood is not a fire station number, it's the shop number (added during the restoration no doubt). Nor were the big side mirrors or the clearance lights on the fenders. All that stuff was added over time prior to the rig being taken out of service, probably after WWII. During the war years, cities could not get new fire trucks, all the production was reserved for the war effort. It was up to the department shops to keep everything running until they could order new equipment. All of the restoration work on #1058 was done by the LAFD shops. The present pumper at Station 1 is shop #60743. The LAFD has purchased a few fire engines (or trucks) since 1923.

When I look at these old rigs, it's amazing how little equipment they carried back then, compared to today. One thing they did carry was a big crank handle, to stick through the bumper to start the engine if it would not start on it's own.

 

Yo George....The East Grand Rapids fire dept. would not agree w/ you...Their fire truck is black with flames.

 

Wow. In all the great pics on here I've never seen a later Hudson used for a police car. Very cool!

 

He looks like David Letterman

 

LOL !

 

Why aren't they scrubbing and washing that car?

 

A black fire engine? Say it isn't so.

I have seen them painted in plenty of different colors. Blue, Green, Orange, White, Yellow, etc.



Of all the non standard colors(any shade of red), yellow seems to be the most popular. I don't know why. When I seee a yellow truck, my first assmption is that it's here to fix the potholes in the street. I asked a fire captain once in Ventura, CA why all their fire apparatus was painted yellow? His response was that "experts" have said that yellow is more easily seen by the public when racing to a fire. My response was that if that were true, how come all the yellow fire engines in Ventura still used flashing red lights all over the apparatus? He seemed stunned by that question, and could not come up with an answer.

 

Didn't Sarge say to catch that pesky kid in the go-cart first ???

 

Reminds me of of all the "go" bags I used over the years...aka beer coolies...

 

Ernie McAfee's famous grainy photo showing the Pete Henderson Roadster edging out a quarter horse

 

The Pete Henderson Roadster - Circa 1944 -