New TDA for Evanston Truck 23. Evanston FD photo
Excerpts from EvanstonNow.com:
Evanston fire officials dedicated the city’s new Truck 23, a Pierce tractor-drawn aerial that replaces a similar unit now 23 years old.
Fire Chief Greg Klaiber said the new truck, based at Fire Station 3 at 1105 Central St., will assure three to five minute response times to fire calls for all parts of the city north of Church Street. The city’s other ladder truck, stationed at Fire Station 2 at 702 Madison St. and serving the south half of town, was replaced with a new model in 2011 after about 20 years of service.
Klaiber said the primary role of ladder truck crews is search and rescue efforts at fire scenes, and he said the well-organized equipment bays on the new vehicle will assure that firefighters can quickly find the equipment they need to whatever situations they may encounter.
Klaiber said planning to acquire the new truck started 18 months ago after an examination of the repair record of the old vehicle. He says 20 years is about the typical life for a ladder truck in fire departments across the country. Purchase of the new truck was approved last August.
The brief ceremony at Station 3 ended with Fire Chaplain David Jones annointing the St. Florian Cross logo on the truck cab with holy oil in the name of the patron saint of firefighters.
Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
The city’s new $1.1 million aerial ladder truck was placed in service on Monday but the preparations which brought it to that point began long before.
The process started with Klaiber meeting with Lonnie Jeschke, the city’s fleet services manager, who has since retired, going over maintenance and repair records of the previous truck and then putting together a plan making the case for a replacement. Jeschke, recently retired Division Chief Tom Janetske, Shift Chief Bill Muno and Management Analyst Mike Whalen served on the group, determining the right height, width, storage capacity of the new vehicle.
The tractor-drawn, 100-foot aerial ladder truck is steered from the front and back ends.
“Some of our streets, especially in winter are very difficult to get down,” Klaiber pointed out, “and a straight truck with all the equipment we carry, they may not be able to make those turns.”
For about the last month, firefighters have been working to get the new truck ready for service. Klaiber singled out Firefighter Michael Hasanov who did much of the carpentry work, custom fitting the truck’s cabinets.
The new truck replaces a 23-year-old 100-foot aerial ladder truck “so this is for the next generation of firefighters,” the chief said.
thanks Dan
#1 by Tim on November 8, 2015 - 12:24 AM
What is going to happen to the old trk 23?
#2 by Bill Post on November 7, 2015 - 11:29 PM
LFD 543 New York City runs with 61 Tower Ladders and 82 straight Aerial Ladders which include the 13 Tillered Aerial Ladder companies. They run with 143 Ladder or Truck companies total.
#3 by LFD 543 on November 6, 2015 - 8:40 PM
FDNY does have 13 Tiller’s.
Manhattan – Ladder 5, 6, 20, 34, 40
Bronx – Ladder 39
Brooklyn – Ladder 101, 104, 106, 118, 147, 175
Queens – Ladder 143 (although I saw that 151 went from a Tiller to a Straight-stick in 2002; unsure if any others went from Tiller to a Straight-stick or Tower Ladd. at any point)
Staten Island – None
*I have no idea how many Tower Ladder’s they have. I don’t feel like going back to check. 😉
#4 by Bill Post on November 6, 2015 - 10:17 AM
Hey Crabby, in Chicago and other places they may have thought the Tillered Aerial would go away however in some places they continued to run them.
What I find amazing is that to this day all of the Los Angeles City Fire Departments Truck companies are Tillered Aerial Ladders. Many of the streets there are pretty wide so it is somewhat surprising that they never went to rear mounted Aerials like Chicago did. They do have winding and narrow streets in the Hollywood Hill and the Santa Monica Mountains which are part of the city however and that may be a reason why they still use Tillered Aerials but their fleet is 100% Tillered and to this day they never even have owned a Tower Ladder. At one time they did have 2 Large Snorkels and about 4 smaller 40 to 50 foot Snorkels that were mounted on Engine companies were they had served as the “Wagon” on several of their Heavy Duty Taskforces during the mid 1960’s to late 1970’s. Currently the Los Angeles County Fire Department has been running with Tillered Quints where the pump is located behind the cab near the front of the Truck.
Some cities have been using them only in some of the more congested areas such as downtown. Surprisingly Seattle Washington which runs 11 Truck companies is going to back to Tillered Aerials for the entire fleet where for many years only their 3 downtown “Ladder companies” had been using Tillered Aerial Trucks. The last I had heard New York City ran with 13 of them.
#5 by Crabby Milton on November 5, 2015 - 3:02 PM
To think there was a time when they thought the tiller would go the way of the square wheel and 8 track.