Baltimore City Fire Department

[Guest]

Was the equipment "back in the day" that good? Or did cities just not replace equipment that frequently? I think the 60's and 70's are when most of the big cities experienced some of the more memoriable fires? I guess what I'm trying to say is that one most likely would not find 30 plus year old trucks in todays firehouses most the time. I love looking at these tough old trucks!

[Guest]

[quote name='hawkins point' post='51598' date='Nov 16 2006, 19:48 ']I believe that the Baltimore shops built the trailers and installed the Fox aerials and installed the Mack tractors. The last of the Hayes/Dahill trucks in service was Truck 17. It served n first line until 1967 and many of these Hayes-Dahill rigs lasted several years in second line. Some had Seagrave tractors. The Fire Museum of MD has a Hayes-Dahill trailer towed by a Bulldog Mack AC tractor. That unit came to the Museum with a Mack LS tractor which is used around the museum as a tow truck.[/quote]



hawkins point- That makes a lot of sense. There were no Ahrens Fox serial numbers listed in the Ahrens-Fox book I looked at in the Fire Museum Library, except for the 1914 Ahrens Fox that went to Ladder 11, which may only have been a tractor. The other Baltimore City Ahrens-Fox ladders did not list serial numbers. By the way, the Ahrens-Fox serial number list shows that Baltimore City purchased 20 Ahrens-Fox pumpers between 1914 and 1923.

[Guest]

Baltimore City purchased a large numbers of fire appartus in 1947. Included were eight Ward LaFrance 750/250 pumpers. Here is Duanes shot of Baltimore Engine 50 running with 1947 WLF #2262, still in first-line service twenty-six years later.

- 1973 Photo by Duane Troxel.

[Guest]

Baltimore City Reserve Engine 6 also was assigned one of the 1947 Ward LaFrance 750/250 pumpers, WLF #2260.

- 1973 Photo by Duane Troxel.

[Guest]

Duane had this isted as a 1947 Mack Reserve pumper. but I believe it was actually a 1943 Mack 750 gpm pumper with Mack serial #85LS-1015, assigned to Reserve Engine 21. It was one of three 1943 Mack 750 gpm pumpers.

- 1973 Photo by Duane Troxel.

[Guest]

Engine #33?, 1947 Mack 750 gpm pumper, Mack #80LS-1108, had recently been repainted to Baltimore City's new white with Omaha orange fenders. On some of Duanes slides, none of which had anything written on them to help identify them, it was really hard to make positive identification- as shown here where the number is covered by a coat.

- 1973 Photo by Duane Troxel.

[Guest]

I'll continue with Duanes 1973 Baltimore City trip tomorrow. Again, as in many other posts, I am trying to list the apparatus as the year indicated by the fire department. I have seen differing delivery dates from the year the department listed as the year of the apparatus. For example, the rig may have been delivered in one year, but the department assigns it a date a year later, possibly when they actually put it into service.



ppfd- I'm not sure about why the rigs lasted longer in those days. I know that the metal was sure a lot thicker in the old days than it is now. For those of us living in snowy conditions, road salt was not a factor way back then.

[Guest]

Yeah I grew up in the snow belt (Akron, Ohio) I remember the city running 60's &70's model Pirsch and Sutphens up into the late 80's. When I was in Medic school the stations I rode at (7&9) both had refurb ladders that were Pircsh's from the early 70's, and reserve engines from the era.

[GA_Dave]

Was the equipment "back in the day" that good? Or did cities just not replace equipment that frequently?

Can you say "E.M.S."? Today's rigs don't hold up for several reasons, but one of the biggest is that we run the wheels off of them in non-fire related activities, such as EMS, Haz-Mat, and CO Detector runs. The old rigs were much less sophisticated and less efficient, but certainly more durable.



From another perspective, how many companies did any given city have back then, compared to the number of companies they have today? What was their annual call load compared to today?



Let's look at Buffalo, NY. Back in the day, they had 38 Engine Companies and 16 Ladder Companies. In 2000, they were down to 23 Engines and 12 Ladders. By 2006, they were reduced to 19 Engines and 9 Ladders, running over 60,000 runs a year, which is way more, I'm sure, than they were running "back in the day".

[Guest]

[quote name='gfd1' post='51492' date='Nov 16 2006, 11:06 ']The Ward LaFrance next to the ALF was purchased from Anne Arundel County and cannailbalized for parts to keep the many City Wards running. The White oil tanker in the background was purchased from Crown Petroleum. It became Tank Wagon 1, used to fill apparatus on the fireground with gas and diesel. It was painted Omaha Orange, the then new City colors.[/quote]

For the ALF triva buff: Baltimore ordered 2 pumpers on ALF shop order 1689, L-1177 and L-1178, on October 29, 1939. Sold as Type "575CO" Invader pumpers, they had special order 200 gallon water tanks which required heavier rear springs. They were shipped on December 18, 1939, less than 2 monhs after order! L-1177 was assigned to E33, FD Vehicle #30, and became SLE41 (Second Line Engine as the resaerve fleet was known) in 1957, L-1178 was assigned to E36. BTW, all Baltimore 500 series ALF's came with the overhead ladder rack, but all were gone by the early 1950's.

[Guest]

Seen here in it's original OD color, at Camp Mills, NY, this rig, a 1918 Ahrens-Fox K-4 750 gpm Reg # 671 went on to see service as Baltimore City Engine 47 & 17.

[Operaone]

Steve. Thanks for all the work you do in getting Duanes slides posted, and thanks for the scanner info. Dick Logan

[Guest]

[quote name='ppfd' post='51609' date='Nov 16 2006, 20:08 ']Was the equipment "back in the day" that good? Or did cities just not replace equipment that frequently? I think the 60's and 70's are when most of the big cities experienced some of the more memoriable fires? I guess what I'm trying to say is that one most likely would not find 30 plus year old trucks in todays firehouses most the time. I love looking at these tough old trucks![/quote]

Many Cities did not have the money needed to replace lots of rigs, please keep this in mind that from 1929 through 1940 we were in the Great Depression where there was no money to buy anything except the essentials and then from 1941 through 1945 you had WWII when the apparatus that was allowed to be manufactured was being carefully doled out based on need by the war production board.



So many places had to make do and rebuild as needed and many places were not able to buy new equipment until the late 40's and early 50's.



The rigs were simpler that is for sure in construction and design but I am sure that they were also kept around out of necessity. Chicago due to financial constraints and shortages ran 1920's vintage Seagrave in some of the outlying companies and as spares up until the early 60's leaving the newer Macks and FWD's with the busier companies.

[Guest]

Great stuff as usual, thank you for it. Seems as though Duane had a brand new '73 Nova sedan which has popped up in more than one photo. <img src='http://www.firepics.net/groupboards/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[Guest]

Ppfd - Thanks for your comments on why apparatus lasted longer back in 50s and 60s.



GA Dave - I think you hit the nail square on the head with EMS being a reason apparatus doesn’t last as long today.



gfd1- Thanks for the interesting insight into Baltimore’s 1939 ALF pumpers. I’ve been trying to figure out what the “SL” in all the reserve apparatus numbers meant- it really perplexed me. While I’ve never heard another department use this, “Second Line” does makes sense Thanks for that valuable info.



Ted – Thanks for the Ahrens Fox photo from 1918.



Operaone – Thank you for the compliment and good luck with purchasing a scanner.



MatttheEPFDBuff- Another good reason why apparatus lasted longer on the old days- IT HAD TO! Another thing I think we forget about is that in the old days the fire department shops were staffed better and were equipped better for repairs and rebuilds than they are today. That was maybe because they had to be. It was much more commonplace for rigs to be in service for 30 years or more back then.



reckscoop – Thank you. You are very observative. The bronze-colored 1973 Nova you see in many of the photos was actually a rental car. Duane flew to Baltimore for the 1973 IAFC Convention.

[Guest]

I must make apology to you all for being rather disorganized when I posted last night. After I had finished posting last night, I discovered that I’d left about a third of the images that I had scanned from Duane’s collection on another hard drive. I knew there should have been more of both Duane’s slides and those that Duane had traded with William Porter to post covering the 1938 through 1947 period of apparatus. Tonight I’ll post the remainder of those images.



I also made a big mistake in “Post 26.” Please disregard the info I had posted there. By 1973, the Baltimore City FD was beginning to rehab a number of the 1948 Mack engines and paint them in the new White & Omaha Orange color scheme- as you will see in other posts tonight. The Mack engine in post 26 was actually of a first-line BFD Engine Company.



Here is a William Porter image of Baltimore City Engine 54 running a 1938 Mack 750/??? pumper,

- Image from the Duane Troxel Collection.

[Guest]

William Porter also took this photo of BFD Second Line Engine 27 operating with this 1939 Mack 750/??? pumper, Mack #80S-1918.

- Photo from the Duane Troxel Collection.

[Guest]

Duane took this indoor shot of Second Line Engine 8 operating a 1939 Seagrave 750/???? pumper, Seagrave #A-2041 delivered on 9/15/1939.

- 1973 Duane Troxel photo.

[Guest]

Duane took this shot of a BFD Second Line Engine, which I believe was a 1939 American LaFrance 750/200 pumper, in a fire apparatus parde during the convention.

- 1973 Duane Troxel photo.

[Guest]

Here is another William Porter photo of BFD Engine 27 using a 1943 Mack 750/200 pumper, Mack #80LS-1017.

- Photo from the Duane Troxel Collection.