Denver Metro Fire Apparatus

[Image7801]

[quote name='Toneslider12' post='312166' date='Jun 8 2009, 10:46 ']Medic 4, a 2008 GMC/Lifeline parked in front of their new temporary quarters in a commercial strip mall.





I found this old beast parked behind the fleet maintenance building. It's labeled as Maintenance 1 but I'm sure it had another life years ago... maybe Image7801 knows it's history.

[/quote]



Ask and you shall receive...



As far as I know, this unit was always an apparatus maintenance unit (with the explanation shown below), but never seemed to really go anywhere - it always seemed to just "sit". This was a (I believe) 1979 Ford F-700 with an unknown body, used by Bancroft-Lakewood/Bancroft-West Metro. I was told that this chassis was originally under the Bancroft-purchased 1979 Ford/Pierce rescue (Unit #R-04) that was retired from West Metro as a reserve a couple of years ago, and that that chassis (the rescue) was under the maintenance body. Some years ago (late 80's, I assume), the chassis under the rescue got pretty worn out, so they switched bodies. The worn out chassis went under the maintenance body (the rig in the photo), and the relatively unused F-700 chassis went under the rescue. The only differences were: 1) One of them (I don't remember for sure, but I think this one, originally under the rescue), had a two-speed rear end, while the other one didn't. 2) Prior to switching the bodies, the rescue can be seen with the Aerosonic red-blue light bar. After the switch, the rescue had an all-red twinsonic light bar (see photo below - credit to Michael Block). If you have access to the Lakewood Fire Department 1937-1990 history book, there is a picture in there from 1988 when they signed the auto aid agreement between Lakewood and Bancroft: The rescue clearly has the red-blue Aerosonic light bar.



   



Cheers!



John.