Fire Engines Photos

This is a classic picture and only recently someone mensioned about a white Bedford at one time being on the run at York,and yes,here it is.The yellow ERF/84PFS-HCB Angus-Simon SS50 PHP dates from 1970 and was on the run until 1980 and was then sold to Carlow County in the Irish Republic and re-registered TIC224.
I have actually just finished a model of the ERF/PHP from York and it can be viewed now on the Transport Models site.Picture 1062.

Added by Pete Matten on 16 May 2010.

This Bedford looks very much like the Dennis bodied "M" (Miles) type. See picture 21318

Added by Michael G on 16 May 2010.

This is indeed a Bedford/M Series Dennis Bros, the County of West Riding operated several of these during the Nineteen Seventies and late sixties these of course were supplied in traditional fire engine red livery. During early nineteen sixty nine West Riding adopted a white/embossed alloy/black livery for their appliances. The Coachworks were done in brillant white with embossed alloy at the rear of the vehicle with the ironwork Gantries/wheels being done jet black.
On the 1974 almalgamation North Yorkshire inherited many as well as West Yorkshire being phased out by replacements. As Peter suggests in his comment the ERF lives on in Southern Ireland but thought to have been preserved in conventional red livery

Added by Bob Carver on 17 May 2010.

hi, if you look at picture 5288 this is a similar bedford of north yorks ian mc

Added by Ian Mcpherson on 17 May 2010.

Thanks for sharing this photo Petros. This white Bedford will have been running as a spare when this photo was taken, North Yorkshire inherited several from the West Riding fire brigade on local Government boundary changes in 1974. They were a cracking little appliance with a six cylinder petrol engine and twin cards. I have drove these appliances when our own pump was off the run, they took a little time to get going from cold but when the engine warmed up the were fairly quick. Also see picture 5288.

Added by Paul Warnock on 17 May 2010.

one of these appliances has recently come up for sale down on the South Coast. The appliance in question was finished in traditional red livery and appeared at the fire show at Odiham in Hants.
I am sure it was ex West Riding.

Added by Bob Carver on 18 May 2010.

I remember driving the Snorkel around york one lovely sunny and busy day. We went back to the staion and I reversed the vehicle onto the stn forecourt at Clifford St, parked the vehicle up outside the bay , handbrake on into neutral took my foot off the clutch pedal and it just fell off onto the cab floor of the vehicle!!very lucky or what? When I threw the clutch pedal out onto the stn forecourt, Stn Officer Ken Gray wasnt too pleased with me- I think he thought I had broken it on purpose!!!

Added by Jim Whitehead on 14 April 2013.

Pity it wasn't an automatic!

Added by Rob Johnson on 14 April 2013.

Does anyone have the identity of the red Bedford just visible on the extreme left of the picture?

Added by Chris Hall on 22 April 2013.

Automatic Rob? Na! It was a good vehicle to drive, but it sorted the men out from the boys when it came to selecting the right gear, I had some fun and games changing gear to start with but once you had mastered it, it was very satifying. Some lads said it had a crash box, but of course it didnt, the linkages from the cab to the gearbox were impressive, to say the least, you just had to be very precise with gearbox speed and gear selection, and thats what I liked about it. If it had been an auto box it would have taken the fun and skill out of driving it. I remember it had a V8 engine and it sounded brill, blipping the throttle at red traffic lights always got people looking! I dont think it was geared right, Back axle maybe, and it was always very slow off the mark-haa good days!!

Added by Jim Whitehead on 23 April 2013.

Ian - I only meant that if it had been an auto you would not have risked losing your clutch pedal!

By the way I once drove a Volvo around twelve miles round the North Circular Road in London without a clutch - and that really did mean I had to match up the revs very carefully! So I do get what you are talking about....

As you were very familiar with this machine, I can't resist asking - how often did you actually use the Snorkel at incidents? The reason I'm asking is that a lot of Brigades had these, but a lot of them seem to have actually barely ever used the platform. How did things turn out in York?

Added by Rob Johnson on 23 April 2013.

Ian, Ah got ya man! Now that must have been a bit of nice driving, no clutch in volvo, thats impressive.
The snorkel at york was a bit useless really if I have to be honest.It wasnt long enough and it had no reach I think it was a fifty footer.
We did use it on the odd occassion, I remember using it at fawcett st warehouse, although I was wearing BA with a lad called Mick Allison, the fire was through the roof and they dicided to use the water monitor on the snorkel.
Mick and I were in the building in BA firefighting with hosereels and and the monitor just about washed us out of the building!!!! Like I said before- good days!

Added by Jim Whitehead on 24 April 2013.

Jim - your story sounds like a classic example of an incident commander using a piece of equipment simply because it was there!

I saw a worse case a few years ago, at a beach community on Lake Michgian in Indiana. The local volunteers responded to a midnight call from a large restaurant, with their two engines. They quickly got six members inside in BA with two 1.75 inch hand lines, fed by their first due engine from the nearest hydrant, and were making good progress, as the fire had already vented itself through the roof.

Then the full-time city department arrived from a nearby station with their new quint and another engine. Without talking to anybody, they cut another vent hole in the roof about twenty feet away from the fire, then hooked up the quint to the same hydrant - first shutting it down to make the connection, and totally starving the interior teams of water for several minutes! Then they blasted the fire from above with a 500 GPM ladder pipe.

This pushed the fire back at the volunteers, created huge steam clouds and forced them to bail out, with no water and no visibility. The result of all this confusion mercifully did not kill or maim anyone, but the reataurant was a total loss.
And a lot of people who were not there blamed the volunteers, of course....

This really demonstrated to my mind the danger of using inappropriate tactics, just because you have the equipment on hand to do so!

Added by Rob Johnson on 25 April 2013.

Yes great story and I can believe it too, tunnel vision is a terrible thing, Ive got the T' shirt!!

Added by Jim Whitehead on 25 April 2013.

I did a bit of research a few years ago, and found out that no British brigade who bought a PHP ever replaced it with another one!

Many - like York - got rid of them after a rather short number of years, and even Glasgow, which had several of them at one time, dropped the idea rather quickly.

Here in the US, St Louis decided several years ago to replace their pumpers with quints with 55 foot ladders, but these too were not replaced. It seems that a 50 or 55 foot fixed base ladder or platform is just not versatile enough to be of much practical use very often!

Quite a few towns here do successfully operate 75 foot quints, and it seems that once you get to this length of ladder or booms, the truck becomes very useful - and of course "full size" 100 footers are very common.

Added by Rob Johnson on 05 January 2018.

ERF is Jennings bodied according to HCB Angus archive holder Aidan Fisher.

Added by Petros on 09 December 2025.

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