Fire Engines Photos

Now thats an AEC but its an AEC Mercury/Merryweather Marquis Series 5.

Added by Ron Henderson on 18 November 2012.

Ron, will bow to your tech knowledge. I just pointed them in the right direction and made use of them at the time but they do seem to have more character than the oblong boxes of today, I think!

Added by Tony (Taff) Madsen Fm 1565 on 18 November 2012.

No problem T., excellent photos. Just what I like. Thanks for posting.
Ron

Added by Ron Henderson on 19 November 2012.

Now thats what you call a fire engine, lovely photos.

Added by Paul Warnock on 22 November 2012.

Pretty useful if you need to park your bike, too!

Added by Rob Johnson on 10 December 2012.

I remember this stationed at Colchester Avenue. Nice pump.

Added by Peter Ryan on 20 May 2014.

I remember this pump stationed at Colchester Avenue.

Added by Peter Ryan on 16 June 2014.

Roath Fire Station is in Colchester Avenue, Cardiff, South Wales, UK. Tony.

Added by Tony Madsen on 16 June 2014.

What a beautiful fire engine it brings back memories of the Hull pumps when I was a lad, thanks for posting

Added by Glenn Ramsden on 18 June 2014.

Is that a siren over on the driver's side?

Added by Stephen Cameron on 11 January 2016.

Yes Steve and it made a devil of a noise too!

Added by Tony Madsen on 12 January 2016.

Thanks Tony. I am interested in the use of air sirens by UK fire brigades and had always assumed they were introduced from about the mid 1950's. However I was watching a historical video from WW2 on YouTube ('The Birth of a Service') and was astonished to see a siren on an engine :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=muVNqyiQjcI

- at about 5 minutes 42 seconds, in the brigade workshops, the camera shows what is surely a siren on the right front wheel arch. This implies some brigades were using them in the '30s?? Any knowledge of this?

Kind Regards

Steve

Added by Stephen Cameron on 12 January 2016.

Steve, you’re indeed correct. Just searched up the vid and that is a mechanical siren on the arch - as a matter of fact it’s the exact same model as the one on that Cardiff AEC - a Francis Searchlights siren. But in the 30s/40s it’s likely these were more commonly mounted on British-made vehicles for foreign emergency services ie. ones were exported overseas to a lot of British colonies like Malaya, Singapore, HK, NZ, Australia most of which were already using sirens rather than bells. Sirens weren’t heavily fitted on the UK’s own emergency vehicles until the post war period. In the case of that AFS vehicle, I would think that the siren may have been fitted as a back up traffic clearing signal, or it was maybe used as a portable air raid warning siren, especially for those areas that didn’t have a power supply for the heavy duty sirens

Added by Vander B on 28 May 2025.

This design is very similar to the PEs and TTLs operated by Newcastle and Gateshead joint fire brigade in the sixties. It was one of the first to adopt Merryweather diesel powered appliances in the early fifties. I always thought these, with the small central sliding cab doors, were rather odd, especially as the original design (depicted on this site) was a four door. Both LFB and a few other brigades ordered both dual purpose pumpers and turntable ladders on this chassis with a full forward control four door cab in later years, with either Merryweather or Haydon bodywork. It seems LFB in particular did not like this two door cab, even though by then its TTLs were often only crewed by two or three riders. The full forward control version also had the advantage that moving the front axle further back reduced the wheelbase and improved maneuverability a bit

By the time Dennis introduced the F106 with the same AEC 470 diesel engine in 1964/5, Merryweather’s domination of the big city diesel powered fire appliance business was seriously challenged, although the firm continued to be very successful with turntable ladders.

Added by Rob Johnson on 29 May 2025.

I’m glad someone else has watched this interesting piece of history on You Tube, Vanda. Watching it again it certainly looks like a typical Francis long rolling siren which many U.K. brigades used from the ‘50s on. Virtually every appliance in the Leeds City Fire Brigade, my own city, had them, but not back in the 1940’s or earlier. Curiously I did read years back somewhere that a city in Wales (Cardiff?) had them in the thirties. As a child it always irked me to see in British films fire engines ringing bells. Why on earth didn’t they turn on their sirens I thought. Of course virtually all British films were made in London and the Home Counties where they seem to have stayed with the old bells for some reason.

Ed: there is a Cardiff image here for checking

www.britishcommercialvehiclemuseum.com/product/leyland-fire-engine-cardiff-fire-brigade-lpf0680/

Added by Steve on 30 May 2025.

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