Fire Engines Photos

This was indeed the (in)famous Merryweather XRL30. I understand Strathclyde had one on a Dodge chassis too. As for Merseyside's, it suffered a complete hydraulic failure whilst on drill and was subsequently scrapped!

Added by Andy Daley on 24 December 2009.

The XRL30 was pictured in the Manuals Of Firemanship on a Dennis Delta Chassis,I think standard tests and drills were devised for it. The Grandad of the CARP? These days the accountants and Managers would have"made it work"!!!!!

Added by Gary Simpson on 24 December 2009.

Fife also had one of those ladders on a dodge chassis which was based at Dunfermline but it didn't last also and was replaced by an HP.

Added by Grant Melville on 27 May 2010.

The ultimate failure of the merryweather XRL 30 was due to the transfer of the project to an associated company without any of the developement team or I suspect managerial interest. Asset stripping was a major factor in the 1980:s

Added by Tony Thorne on 02 March 2016.

As in many other cases, there was a lot of consolidation in the fire service turntable ladder business, not only in Europe but overseas too. Building small volumes of these ladders was not an economic proposition, if the builder was trying to keep up with evolving technology and using the large factory spaces, special production equipment and numerous highly skilled manufacturing staff who were needed. So smaller firms were struggling, and disappearing - while even world leaders like Metz, Magirus, Pierce, Seagrave and Morita ended up merging or being acquired by larger firms with more resources for research, engineering and manufacturing.

Added by Rob Johnson on 08 July 2022.

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