Stamford, CT New Engine 9

[seagrave100ft]

It seemed a little too convenient in 2008 when the career guys from the vol. depts were moved downtown and Engines 8 & 9 were organized, that there just happened to be two HME's readily available since Engines 5 & 6 had their HME engines recently replaced with 2007 and 2008 HME quints.

SF&R had been operating 3 Sutphen trucks, one of those, Truck 2 and the newest at a 2001 was a mini tower demo made as an emergency purchase when their aerial fleet as in bad shape. They had Sutphen remove the bucket and operated it as a straight stick but it was way too short to be effective so it was replaced in 2006 with an HME RK Aerials ladder truck.

 

   

 

   

 

   

 

 

[seagrave100ft]

Back in the mid/late 1990's when Springdale reached a deal with the city for their career guys to become SF&R employees and reassigned downtown and SF&R would organize Engine 7. SF&R agreed they would man Springdale's 1985 Mack CF RSI Engine 53 which would be renumbered Engine 7 and have SF&R graphics applied to it. In 2006 a new HME engine was assigned to E7 and the Mack was returned to Springdale who refurbed it and placed it back in service as E53. Not that it matters since Springdale is as bad responding to their own calls as Glenbrook.

 

   

 

   

 

   

 

[seagrave100ft]

If anyone has any photos from any of the Stamford fire depts., especially pre 1990's PLEASE post them. I'd enjoy seeing what othe guys have. For some reason, Stamford seems to have been a very under photographed city.

[seagrave100ft]

Compounding an already bad decision. Here's Engines 1, 4 & 5 purchased all around the same time. Somebody must have been really impressed by these things because they multiplied like cockroaches all over the city and now it's infested with them. Going to be an expensive problem to clean up.

 

   

[TacSupport1]

Here's the aforementioned thread on EMTBravo.com:

 

Update on Stamford Merger 

[Juice]

Glenbrook's 2009 HME Engine 34. This machine was a pure "payoff" for playing nice with the former mayor allowing him to assign SF&R Engine 6 there. Not that they had any choice because they were already dying on the vine with very few active members responding to calls. Engine 6 was a lifeline for them allowing them to remain in "operation" a little longer. If I'm correct, I believe Engine 6 has even used this as their "reserve" causing Glenbrook to respond their 1992 Sutphen which is a step up. This HME replaced their 1983 Sutphen that was given to the city as a reserve engine.

 

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A Mars light, but no Q siren  I like a Mars 888 as much as the next guy, but a Q almost seems like an essential thing to me, to move traffic (although technically, it isn't)

[senatobiafire704]

I feel your pain in regard to the HME's. We have a '98 SFO and that thing is literrally fallling apart day by day. All of the gauges have vibrated back out of the dash and no longer work, all of the door panels are falling off, etc. Very poor workman ship from what I can tell. As long as I have any input in my dept., we will not buy another HME product or one of the Ferrara's that are actually HMEs that they are trying to sell of as their apparatus.

[seagrave100ft]

The current Glenbrook is a shell of it's former self and doesn't even come close to resembling the Glenbrook of the 1950's, 60's & 70's. There was a gradual decline as fires fell in the 80's while ambulance calls skyrocketed through the roof essentially becoming Stamford Fire's 2nd ambulance. They put a 3rd career guy on during the day just so a machine could get out the door while the ambulance was downtown again. That's a whole seperate story itself. The new HME E34 has 2 speakers in the bumper. I'm going to assume since having a Q is a big deal in town that it has one of those electronic Q's because of cost. 

I did manage to overlook one HME and it was the absolute very first one purchased by Turn of River with city capital project money.

Earlier, Turn of River requested approx. $700,000 for a new truck to replace an aging 1973 Seagrave that had been already refurbed once and was getting tough to keep in service. The last ladder certification it had it was downgraded to fly it no more 80ft and not below 50 degrees. For obvious reasons that was the last time it was certified.

With the ongoing hostilities with the city they reduced the money to $400,000 assuming Turn of River could NEVER buy a new truck for $400,000. Turn of River had a great working relationship with the then city Director of Public Safety, Health and Welfare. He was a big help in scaring up funds to keep Turn of River going and it's his common sense and ability to reason that ultimately cost him his job. He had a reputation before coming to Stamford as being a real hard-assed "hitman" who could make life very difficult while he ended up being a pretty good guy to work with. Well Turn of River had outstanding capital project money of almost $40,000 it hadn't used so it was requested if it could be transferred to the truck request bringing that up to $440,000.

Interestingly a SF&R Lt. happened to own a Smeal dealership several towns away and had kept trying to get his foot in the door in Stamford but citing a conflict of interest they refused to do business with him. He was however all too happy to work a great deal for Turn of River and get a Smeal in Stamford which was shortly followed by selling a new Spartan Smeal engine to Belltown. I don't recall the exact price but it was pretty close to the $440,000. I'm sure the mayor took that as another slap in the face.

 

   

 

   

[seagrave100ft]

Here are photos of Turn of River's 1995 Seagrave the dept. sold to pay bills when the city was once again financially squeezing the hell out of them. This is one of the photos when it was placed on eBay. Even though this was newer that the 1993 Seagrave, it had more miles on it since it was assigned to Station 2. Station 2 only runs an engine and covers a lot of miles while Station 1 also runs a tanker, truck and rescue. In all honesty the '95 Seagrave was a piece of garbage compared to the '93 which was a much better built machine with a lot less mechanical problems.

The next photo is Belltown's Smeal. Belltown was a Mack department for years and with no Mack fire service chassis being offered this was their first non Mack engine purchased since a Buffalo in the 1930's. This machine was spec'd using the Turn of River philosphy of a first due engine that can do a little bit of everything. In Turn of River with the call volume, distance to cover, career guys working alone, long mutual aid response and a decades long reluctance to have a good amount of volunteer drivers that mindset became a necessity. Belltown covers a square mile and does a fraction of the calls Turn of River does so it was overkill, plus they have a strong contingent of volunteer drivers often completely clearing out the house on a home alarm. I've been told the former career guys had a heavy influence in designing it and now they're all gone having been reassigned to SF&R stations. The volunteers who now completely operate that dept. despise this machine and the volunteer drivers given the choice will use E42, a 1986 Mack CF RSI.

 

   

 

   

[Guest]

I love the way you talk about your former mayor, now governor um, um, Malloy.  How this idiot got his job is beyond me.  As a state employee, our union backed him, together with the scare that his opponent put into all of us, we elected him to office.  The honeymoon didnt last long before he threatened layoffs and we gave in, and once again balanced the budget on the backs of the working man.  While the head honchos in my department ride around in brand new SUV's, we are still using trucks that date back to the 1990's.  The attitude he had as mayor in Stamford carried over to the state of Connecticut.

[seagrave100ft]

The crooked piece of garbage is the biggest bullying, lying, deceitful a'hole to come wandering down the pike, even worse than Lowell Weicker and Bill O'Neill. All anyone had to do was look at what he did to Stamford in his 14 years to run away from him like he was the plague. During his tenue, the property taxes on my house DOUBLED. He's an elitist imbecile and crooked as the day is long. Few know the FBI were about to begin investigating him when that kid touching mayor in Waterbury blew up into a major case with mob involvement and that comes from a well connected state trooper. His antics weren't limited to just the fire service. He had his rat claws into everything devastating that city so bad that after almost 4 years the current mayor has gotten little done because of all the lawsuits and court decisions that he grew to despise the job and no interest in running for reelection. I don't know if anyone can fix that city. Just look at when he hired his equally incompetent buddy, Dean Esserman to head the Stamford PD. The guy isn't even a real cop and only got his POST certification through an abrievated acaademy so he couls take a chief job. That cretin Malloy hires him and the guy starts beating up on district commanders telling them their jobs are more important than their families and children and they better know about anything happening in their districts before he does. Then the Crown Vic assigned to him wasn't good enough and demanded the city lease him an Explorer but he kept the Crown Vic also even though the fleet was in bad shape and they desparately needed cars. Then never mind when he was hired he still lived in Brooklyn, NY and agreed to move to Stamford and was given moving money PLUS he swore he'd stay his full five year contract. Not only did he leave well before the 5 years but he was still living in Brooklyn. But he was Danny's boy so nobody touched him because Dannny with the big (D) next to his name also controlled the boards (finance and reps) and the Stamford Advocate cowtowed to him so he had a free run. The man is a compete amoral bastard without an ethical bone or ounce of integrity in his body. He's impossible to deal with and will throw you every curve ball and pull every dirty trick imaginable to prove his point that he's the supreme ruler of the land and you WILL do it his way. Hands down, he is the WORST thing that ever happened to that city and now the state. Hopefully if there is any justice in this world prison will be in his future. 

[seagrave100ft]

Here's the Stamford Police in 2008 serving yet another search warrant on the Ocean Drive East Malloy residence.

His kid is quite the small businessman operating a dealership in recreational narcotics and likes to force his way into somebody else's home late at night without being invited and daddy, the former prosecutor plays dumb. He'd do well in the current White House.

 

   

[Frank B]

I ask around about different truck builders and chassis. I got the thumbs down from Elkton MD on the HME chassis. The guys took the time to show me a few things, one of wich was a cracking frame/body just below the windshield on the drivers side. The had all most all HME chassis at the time. The last new truck was not a HME, go figure?

[firetdriver_99]

Nice looking KME Shame its going to housed in a tent.  No offense to anyone in Stamford several departments, but it sounds like even with restructuring its still going to be a mess. To many players in the game. My opinion scrap it and go to one department and be done with it.

[FireMedic049]

Nice looking KME Shame its going to housed in a tent.  No offense to anyone in Stamford several departments, but it sounds like even with restructuring its still going to be a mess. To many players in the game. My opinion scrap it and go to one department and be done with it.

Going to one department is what is in progress currently.  There was a referendum a year or so ago in which the voters approved changing the City Charter in order to form a single city-wide fire department.  Some of the volunteer departments are fighting it though.

[BFD190]

My dept. Recently placed two Pierce engines into service.. These are the first Pierce's. They begin to replace a fleet of HME central states that were well recieved to replace the macks at the time. The HME s have served my dept. Extremely well under harsh road and weather conditions. They have also seen a fair share of fire duty... The Brockton Fire dept. Responds to over 21000 runs a yr. With nine companies. Squad A and ladder co. 1 Respectively run approx. 9000 of those runs. Both HME. I think its safe to say i dont consider them trash.. Most bang for the buck at the time and they stood up to the workload of a city that ran them thru the gammet

[firetdriver_99]

Going to one department is what is in progress currently.  There was a referendum a year or so ago in which the voters approved changing the City Charter in order to form a single city-wide fire department.  Some of the volunteer departments are fighting it though.

 

Good sounds like that is the best option the only ones suffering in this system seem to be the firefighters and residents just seems like a bad deal the way it is now.

 

That is a really good looking KME do you have anymore specs on it or pictures?

[seagrave100ft]

There has been a vicious, bitter "civil war" going on 20 years now with multiple lawsuits etc. and all it's accomplished is causing the volunteers to dig in their heels even deeper. They no longer trust the mayor, Stamford Fire & Rescue, Local 786, Board of Reps, Board of Finance and the Director of Public Safety. It goes way beyond mistrust, bitter resentment and anger. Before this started, membership and involvement in the vol. FD's was already in a steady decline. There was a way to handl this properly and they was a way to improperly handle this. That goon who was mayor improperly handled this from the start. Some diplomacy, reassurance, gratitude for the years of service, some respect and the offer of non-intrusive, non-threatening help from the city fire dept would have gone a long way but being a petty tyrant he just expected to get his way and people to capitulate to him taking to dirty game playing, name calling and attempts to embarrass and humiliate the volunteers. He's such an arrogant bastard and a bully that I honestly don't think he expected the resistance he met. Apparently nobody ever told him the story of the old bull and the young bull and screwing the cows. You don't barrel-ass your way into somebody else's shop, point your finger in their face and tell them what's what.

Delicately handled years ago and you wouldn't have firefighters working out of a construction trailer and tents while the vol. FD that covers 40% of the city misses a ton of calls and more importantly, with all that geography to cover don't get their tanker, truck and rescue out the door that often leaving SF&R to have to bring up their trucks and rescue from downtown now stripping I-95 responses of a rescue and having to pull a tanker down from Long Ridge stripping that district of big water.

I can't believe almost 20 years later this carnival of dysfunction is still operating and as half assed as it was when this crap started. No, I take that back. Pulling the career guys from those 4 stations and replacing them with Engines 8 & 9 didn't solve a G/D thing. At least back then Turn of River was making 100% of their 2000+ calls and getting their machines out the door. Unbelievable.

[TacSupport1]

Stamford, CT New Engine 8
2014 KME Severe Service Predator 1500/1000/30(Foam)
 
I've posted over 50 in depth detail photos on my site:
http://www.emtbravo.net/index.php/topic/...-engine-8/

   

[firetdriver_99]

Stamford, CT New Engine 8

2014 KME Severe Service Predator 1500/1000/30(Foam)

 

I've posted over 50 in depth detail photos on my site:
http://www.emtbravo.net/index.php/topic/...-engine-8/

stamfordfb.jpg

I like it one very well laid out engine