I guess I lied when I said I was done posting vintage LAFD fire apparatus photos. I’ve got a few more to share, if you don’t mind. I admit it, this one was before my time. From what I understand, this Model-T Ford fire engine was the first piece of fire equipment the LAFD had in the San Fernando Valley. Another photo of the LAFD Water Tower. I never actually saw this rig in action, it was a pumper. The old timers around the department called it the Coca Cola truck, but underneath all that metal was just another triple combination (pumper, hose wagon, and a 500 Gal water tank) fire engine. This Ladder Truck had a lot of different length ladders, but no aerial ladder. All the ladders were ground ladders. This one was an actual "hook & Ladder" truck, it had a wooden ladder that used both a strong spring and hand cranking to get the ladder up. Same with this one above , a 1937 American La France. This 1939 Segrave was the first ladder truck on the department with a steel aerial ladder. Another view of the American LaFrance Hose Wagon, that ran with the ALF Duplex Pumper. There was nothing "standard" about fire engines. The seven outlets above the running board were all for 2 1/2" hose. The two compartments above the outlets were for the 2 1/2" hose, stored in cross-lay fashion. It had only a 200 gallon water tank and a hose real. The monitor on top was designed for a fireboat, and is good for almost 4000 gallons per minute of water flow, enough to blow through the walls of a lot of buildings. Today, most fire departments rely on radial saws to cut through metal roll-up doors on some commercial buildings. The water monitor was how those doors were dealt with back then. The water pressure just blew the doors off the tracks and that was it. A photo of the cross-lay bins without the hose in them. The Hose Wagon in action. The two 3 1/2" supply lines are from the Duplex Pumper, and all the 2 1/2" hand lines on the ground in the background are coupled to the 2 1/2" outlets on the driver side of the rig. A quick story. In the 1970's I wrote a book about the fire apparatus of the LAFD, which was published in 1974. The American La France team of a Hose Wagon and a Duplex Pumper were still in use at the time. I lived in Hollywood at the time, and LAFD Fire Station 27 had the One Two punch rigs in use there. I was a very frequent visitor to Station 27, and when they got a call, the engineer/driver of the Duplex always invited me to get in and come along. Again, there were no actual fire fighters on the Duplex, just the driver/engineer. Fire engines in those days were like locomotives, they were monsters. I would hang out with the driver and watch him hook up to the hydrant(s). He would get the two big V-12's to start turning the pumps. The two stacks on the back are the exhaust stacks of the rear engine. He usually opened the hoods on both sides to let the heat out (photo below). The ground shook when that thing was pushing the water to the Hose Wagon. The LAFD had a half dozen of these around town, too, in single engine fire stations. It has a 1500 GPM pump (in front of the cab), the same V-12 engine, and a 500 gallon tank. Although these were customized by ALF to meet the specs of the LAFD, they were just like any other standard fire engine is today, with the standard hose reel, 3 1/2" supply hose, and 2 1/2" and 1 3/4" hand lines, and a ground ladder on the other side. This happens to be the front cover of the fire apparatus book I wrote for the LAFD. The title is "FIRE APPARATUS, A Pictorial History of the Los Angeles Fire Department". I sold more than 5000 copies in the 1970's, at $5.00 each. It has not been in print since 1974, and yet I see used copies on Amazon and Ebay selling for over $90.00. The Hose Wagon photo on the cover was built by Segrave and deliverd to the LAFD in 1939, using the identical specs as were used on the ALF Hose Wagons.
Astronaut Alan Shepard with his ‘62 Corvette, his NASA gate pass is on the dash. GM couldn’t gift government employees a car but they did lease astronauts Corvettes for $1.
Wonderful article by Pat Ganahl on 50's Drag Racing with excellent Color Images....just click on the link! https://patganahl.com/2022/06/27/50s-drags-in-color/
The Jalopy Journal
