Quote: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".