Awesome old squad, my prior chief has stories of running on this one when it acted as a reserve. The station it is parked in front of is still active, this is I believe Station 10.
You can watch video of this thing in service here. [url="http://www.onlyredtrucks.com/video/RFD_TheAlarmOffice.wmv"]Only Red Trucks[/url] The station they're leaving from is no longer an active fire house, but still houses the administration as well as the city's 911 center and a backup EOC. They've done a nice job of remodeling the exterior of this building to look "older" if that makes an sense.
Too bad all of the old rigs in the video are gone. Rockford had some rigs with serious character.
I believe the Normal Ladder found its way to Mt. Zion, Il and was out of service as of 2000. If the same one it is currently at Decatur Auto Parts rusting away, they had it for sale for almost a year for 5,000 with no bites.
3 0ut of 4 Stations are manned 24/7, Volunteer has been removed from all apparatus. I'm guessing probably over 2000 runs a year.
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Correct, as of now, they have 3 out of 4 stations staffed. Im sure station 2 will be staffed in the near future.
They are at right about 2000 runs now for the year, and thats not including Ambulance runs (as TPFD only responds w/ the ambulance if it's a crash or a force entry is needed, TPFD contracts w/ a private ambo company for ems).
If you add in the EMS runs w/ the fire runs, they are about 9,000 runs a year.
I wasn't sure which topic to post this under but here is my rig find of the year. Earlier in '09 I got a phone call from a collector in Wisconsin telling me he had a fire truck I might have an interest in. That was the understatement of the year!!! He had bought and restored my old department's 1926 Pirsch engine. This was the first motorized rig in Hillside and though I had known about it from department history and a builder photo graciously provided to me by Dan Martin all bets were that it had been cut up for scrap many years ago. As it turned it it still existed and several attempts were made to restore, none succesful until Eric Schultz in Wisconsin got his hands on it and did a total frame-off restoration. It turns out after it served Hillside until the early '50's it went on to serve in Stanley, IA for at least another decade. The best we can figure is that it was traded-in in 1952 or 53 when Hillside receieved a 1952 Ford/Central St.Louis engine (which I would love to find a good pic of). Eric did an outstanding job on this restoration. I shot the pics when he brought it to the Milwaukee Muster in August. It also went down to Indy for the SPAAMFA Convention in August.
Dennis Metzger
Eden Prairie, MN
Canon EOS T3i
All photos Copyright Metzger.Media 2014 unless otherwise noted
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