I have some favorite “hate objects” in model railroading. Among other things, in terms of cliches … [:D]
For example, I would not like to have a church on the layout,
as there is one in every old track book!
The same applies to fire trucks … Scenes of burning buildings with smoke generator and fire trucks with flashing lights … Not for me thanks [;)].
I happened to see a kit that almost converted me!
A-(nother) Jordan-kit! An Ahrens Fox fire engine!?!.
I just had to buy it … But I couldn´t allow myself to paint it red!
Since my layout is depicting a big city in New England during World War II, one can imagine that there were variations on the theme.
Then I had an idea, because both the model year on the fire engine was a bit old, and it was wartime, it could be “normal” that they used older equipment as rescue vehicles.
In my case, I checked around and saw a lot of references to older material which was painted and served during the war. Several used by the U.S. Navy, and painted intermediate blue!
Said and done! That decided it.
A U.S. Navy fire engine, stationed in the harbor as an emergency vehicles in case of bombing or other sabotage (or even an explosion in the nearby “Hughes Industries” [;)].
This is the result:
Good job on the fire truck. It’s common practice here to use older equipment no longer rated for class A status as support equipment. Support equipment can range from class B to tanker (water tender), rescue, equipment (service) trucks, brush trucks, etc. Some are red, some are lime green, I’ve even seen some in camouflage scheme.
I always like seeing your work. You are a real inspiration. I especially love the details, not just on the truck but all over (like the streak of dirt down the wall right below the person in the window).
Great job!
One thing, though: when representing US Navy (or any other military) equipment, the vehicle would generally have a serial number stenciled below the words “US Navy”.
HI GRAFFEN: Really Nice Truck! F.Y.I: My oldest brother was fireman 30 years. In his station sat a 1927 Seagrave truck w/ r.h. steering wheel, painted black w/ gold striping. It was only a backup unit; never out on the road in regular service. My brother had the duty of starting it once in awhile, which was required on all the really old trucks. They had older truck, parked behind the Seagrave. It was red w/ r.h. steering wheel and had solid rubber tires. This one never went anywhere! My brother said it rode like a rock! They only moved it when washing station floor w/ a firehose. TTFN…papasmurf
Thanks, I saw some references showing that and thought it could be a nice variation on the theme.
Thanks, it´s always good to get some positive input
I have found some numbers now to put under the (handwritten) text.
[quote user=“papasmurf”]
HI GRAFFEN: Really Nice Truck! F.Y.I: My oldest brother was fireman 30 years. In his station sat a 1927 Seagrave truck w/ r.h. steering wheel, painted black w/ gold striping. It was only a backup unit; never out on the road in regular service. My brother had the duty of starting it once in awhile, which was required on all the really old trucks. They had older truck, parked behind the Seagrave. It was red w/ r.h. steering wheel and had solid rubber tires. This one never went anywhere! My brother said it rode like a rock! They only moved it when washing station floor w/ a firehose. TTFN…papasmurf
Very nice, I particularly like the “old photograph” look.
For something other than traditional red yet not military, I can remember when some contractors would buy old fire trucks and use them for their water pumping capabilities. Sometimes they’d be repainted sometimes not, and some of them were real antiques (wood wheel spokes!), probably bought quite cheap. That is another “non cliched” use for an old fire truck. When Milwaukee retired its “trackless trolley” electric buses, likewise some contractors bought them up as mobile (towed) offices/locker rooms at construction sites.
And reversing the process that our friend has adopted above, war surplus stuff was plentiful in the years after WWII and Korea, and once again contractors were a good market for that . And some of those contractors used old shovels and graders, too, making construction projects of the early 1960s a sort of time warp of interesting stuff, guaranteed to attract an audience of boys including me!
My hunch is that what was going on is that we were seeing the last gasp of the local contracting outfits bidding on large projects versus the very large and well-equipped regional (even national) contractors that we see today, who tend to have all new and purpose built equipment, often favoring one or two suppliers just like the railroads so, and for similar reasons of parts inventory and ease of repair. The purely local contractors were a patchwork of resources in comparison.
Along somewhat similar lines, there is a local (Milwaukee area) computer repair outfit that makes house calls, and they have bought up old ambulances – to emphasize that they are responding to emergency calls!
