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Where are they now … Calumet City

This from Dennis McGuire, Jr.

Here is Calumet City X-Engine 1, a 1937 American LaFrance Type 475 pumper sitting in a park in Calumet City.

Dennis McGuire, Jr. photo

Tags: American LaFrance 1937 engine, Calumet City Fire Department, Dennis McGuire Jr., old fire engine becomes playground equipment

This entry was posted on October 28, 2012, 2:19 PM and is filed under Fire Department History, Fire Department News. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Comments

• #1 by Wayne Stuart on October 30, 2012 - 6:59 PM

  

  Dennis, this is the first rig I had the pleasure or non pleasure to drive in 1971 when I was in Cal City. It was definately a quad, tank,ladders,pump and hose. If my memory serves me well it was a 150 gallon tank. The hose bed took about 1000′ of 2 1/2″ hose. It was the old Thermoid type double jacket rubber lined with brass couplings that payed out the chutes on either side at the rear. The stuff must have weighed at least 75 pounds a length. It also had a booster reel on the top of the water tank that had 200′ of 1″ red line with a hand crank to rewind it. It had a rotary gear pump, would pump water, mud, fish, rocks just about anything that would fit into the intake. The only problem was when shutting down a hand line you had to remember to open the churn valve or else risk blowing up your hose cause it just kept on pumpin. The ladders were all wood including a two section 50′ Bangor, which was a treat to raise. Steering was quite a challenge, had to stand up to turn the steering wheel to make down some of the narrow streets off of Wentworth Av. It was quite an adventure driving it in the rain or snow! Ah the memories.

• #2 by Dave Bloom on October 30, 2012 - 2:03 PM

  

  Dennis, my error, the missing element was the hose body. I’m an old “smoke-eater” who remembers when they were referred to as “triples”, “quads” and “quints”. Remember “class B” pumps too.

• #3 by Dennis on October 30, 2012 - 5:23 AM

  

  @Dave Bloom…Read my comment again….I mentioned the water tank………….. “Engine 1 had ground ladders yes, but it also had a 1000 gpm pump, and a water tank so I guess if one was to get techinical it would be a quad.
  They called it Engine 1”

• #4 by Dave Bloom on October 29, 2012 - 9:31 PM

  

  It does look like it could have carried the amount of ladders required for a quad or city service ladder. Dennis, you forgot the water tank, to call it a quad. Check out indianafiretrucks.com, retired Indianapolis rigs, or maybe Kokomo, for pictures of old city service trucks.

• #5 by David on October 29, 2012 - 3:18 AM

  

  So this is what I call a proper restoration

• #6 by Dennis on October 28, 2012 - 9:38 PM

  

  @Jim,.. Engine 1 had ground ladders yes, but it also had a 1000 gpm pump, and a water tank so I guess if one was to get techinical it would be a quad.
  They called it Engine 1

• #7 by Jim Johnson on October 28, 2012 - 8:08 PM

  

  Its a City service ladder truck.

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