Fire Engines Photos

pump drill competitions are a thing of the past , 28 years ago as a young fireman I was involved at county and national level in scotland being part of a team that swept the board winning the one, three four and five man drills for local authority teams , tayside couldnt find the money to send us down south for the national so the runners up went so Blairgowrie lost out , we did the same the following year so it wasnt a fluke , unfortunately the brigade stopped the local competition so that was the end for us , however the one man time still stands for fireman Bruce Maclaren as does the three and five so we werent half bad!

Added by Alan on 03 June 2014.

The blue rotating beacon lights were first introduced in to the UK in 1960, and it took about a year for them to be fitted on all appliances. These little pumpers certainly have an unusual retrofit, with the lights on a "lollipop stick" for extra height. They originally date from around 1951/2.

Added by Rob Johnson on 13 June 2014.

The blue lights were probably mounted high enough to be seen above the head of an Ajax 50ft wheeled escape ladder which all these Bedford pumps could carry.(i suppose they were technically water tenders as they carried 400gall(1800litres) water though no portable pumps). They were all dual-purpose and fitted with the trunnion gear to take an escape. Some stations had them as Pumps, some as Pump-Escapes, some, one of each! Can't sing their praises too much. Not the most beautiful but great to drive, stable, fast and one felt safe with good brakes. Bit of a bind getting at the rearmounted hose reel if carrying an escape though and at a 'working job' one first off-loaded the escape to properly operate jets from the rear mounted pump. The rotary gear pump for the single hose reel was operated from the nearside (see controls on above photo below 'City of').

Added by Tony Madsen on 22 April 2015.

The "lolly stick" is actually a bi-pod and can be seen better on photo 33367.

Added by Tony Madsen on 22 April 2015.

Please add your comments about this picture using the form below.

Comments

Your Name

Your email address - this will be shown on the page and will allow the system to notify you of further comments added to this picture.