Fire Engines Photos

The color of this car does it mean that this truck was in the military?

Added by Lambert Arnaud on 20 April 2011.

No, all fire service cover in the UK was provided by the NFS in WW2. Grey was the colour of their appliances. After the war many were sold of to the newly founded local brigades and repainted.

Added by David Jones on 20 April 2011.

No. All fire service vehicles issued under the Auxiliary Fire Service (later to become the National Fire Service) in the second world war, were grey. This was either down to the lack of red pigment, and large cheap stocks of grey paint. Or (unlikely n my eyes) to be harder to spot from the air.

Added by Davey G on 20 April 2011.

Lambert, certainly note.There are several pictures of fire appliances in this grey livery on this site and they served during the second world war with the Auxiliary Fire Service(AFS)and then the National Fire Service(NFS)formed in 1941.
For more information check out picture 7391 and also picture 7550 for more details about the National Fire Service.

Added by Pete Matten on 20 April 2011.

All NFS and AFS vehicles both pre and post war were owned by the Home Office. Pre war dark battleship grey was chosen mainly to distinguish HO appliances from the local authority ones. The HO ones could be used for training but not as a money saving wheeze by the local authorities. The grey is a British Standard colour probably to avoid variation and also be readily available. Increased warship construction at the time.

Added by Neal Glover on 20 April 2011.

The correct colour is Dark Admiralty Grey - I know because when I brought this it came with nearly a full tin of the stuff, shame, as a K3 the brakes seem to have been an optional extra, there is no servo assist so when a problem is seen it's probably too late.
Hopefully she will be appearing at quite a few shows this year


Added by Robert Turner on 08 July 2011.

Ahh the K Series brakes . What tales there are to be told there. They changed the design c 1946!

Added by Neal Glover on 08 July 2011.

Rob, When me and dad did the deluge set we took "flakes" of paint (a wheel arch and the toolbox) to be colour matched and got the shade thats currently on the set. Which if you notice on the pics of it behind your HU then you will see there is a marked difference.

Im under the impression there may well have been different grey paints used at different times, on different things from different factories and therefore maybe grey is just grey..?

But to be fair everyone else seems darker than me, so maybe ill do a proper paint job this year and darken it up a little to become a conformist?!?

Added by Davey G on 08 July 2011.

Do you mean from 1946 they fitted brakes??
She's going back into storage tomorrow, 10 miles away in Huddersfield, about 300 feet down, but the total hills are 1800 feet down and 1500 feet up and yes Dave your deluge set is too light the spec is BS381C - I get mine from Shipley paints - I can get you a can for next time I see you

Added by Robert Turner on 09 July 2011.

Neil, If you mean the rear wheel brake cylinders with hollow piston then I'd recommend replacing these pistons with stainless steel next rebuild (made mine). Add silicone brake fluid and you should have fewer troubles (they will release again). As for braking effort, mostly up to the driver. The one ton lump on the back (pump) doesn't help!

On the subject of grey(s), agree with reference to BS 381C Dark Admiralty Grey but as paint making was not centralised, it's easy to belive that local variations could exist. The grey was indeed camouflage. Khaki was not used, presumably to differentiate from the armed forces.

Added by Peter McCombie on 09 July 2011.

We had one of these Austin Heavy Units (700 IGPM pump) in the Darlington County Borough fleet until around 1958. It was of course repainted red and was fleet number 5. But I do not think it was used much in later years, as the station had two AFS Green Goddesses as well as three modern front line pumps, and one of the Goddesses was used as the reserve if and when one of the three front line units was not available.

The brigade also had an ex-NFS Austin ATV for about the same length of time; its original Dennis No:2 500 IGPM trailer pump was retrofitted to one of the two Commer type A water tenders (Carmichael RHN 999)- the other (Whitson NHN 999) got a 700 GPM pump from a retired prewar Leyland appliance.

I think the Heavy Unit was probably fairly busy until these two were converted, but was then not really needed, especially after the new AFS emergency pumps arrived at the station.


Added by Rob Johnson on 23 April 2018.

Rob if you have half an hour to spare have a look online at the 'North East Film Archive' and the 1958 colour film ' Exercise Tyne' this is packed with fire engines from all the north east brigades in a massive exercise on Tyneside . Many appliances are wartime models .

Added by CraigW on 24 April 2018.

Typo , the film is actually 1952 , doh!

Added by CraigW on 25 April 2018.

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