New ladder for River Forest « chicagoareafire.com

New ladder for River Forest

This from Josh Boyajian:

Here are pictures of River Forest’s new 2013 Smeal 105′ quint they just purchased. It will be marked in the coming weeks before it will be on display in the Smeal booth at FRI at McCormick Place next month.

Thanks Josh Boyajian

Josh Boyajian photo

Tags: fire truck photos, Josh Boyajian, pictures of fire trucks, River Forest FD buys Smeal demo, River Forest Fire Department, Smeal Fire Apparatus, Smeal Sirius, Spartan Smeal Sirius chassis

This entry was posted on July 23, 2013, 7:03 AM and is filed under Fire Department News, Fire Truck photos, New Delivery. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Comments

#1 by Bob on July 24, 2013 - 12:25 PM

Thanks for the info, Mike & NJ..
#2 by NJ on July 24, 2013 - 9:39 AM

Pierce uses a graphic that they update for each ordered unit. It is not a picture of the actual unit.
#3 by Mike Lopina on July 24, 2013 - 9:38 AM

@ Bob- Smeal has been around for many years. In fact, up until the early 90’s they, along with LTI, provided the actual ladders for Pierce’s aerial apparatus. LTI did the towers and Smeal did the aerials. Look at older (1992ish and older) and you’ll see the design is Smeal’s. Pierce then started making their own ladders which are based off the Smeal design. This isn’t to say Pierce “stole” the design; just that they appreciated the Smeal quality and based their design off of it. Skokie’s Reserve Truck has a Smeal ladder on it. It has a Pierce emblem on the ladder but it is a Smeal design. Also, Evanston Trk 23 has a Smeal ladder. The difference and the way to tell a Smeal vs a Pierce is Smeal uses/used a cross web truss while Pierce uses a W (or M, depending on which way you look at it) truss. I thought for while that Pierce had bought out Smeal but then St Louis started buying Smeal aerials on their quints and they became more than just a regional company that supplied aerials and did local stuff.
#4 by Bob on July 24, 2013 - 12:38 AM

Thanks for the info guys. And I guess there’s some regional preferences. For example, when I lived down in Miami, seems all the engines were Crimson, I believe.
Speaking of Pierce, whenever they roll-out a new rig, is that an artificial background they use when they photograph it by the flags? Kinda seems like it, being that in winter time, there was no snow in the background…?
#5 by matt on July 23, 2013 - 8:21 PM

dont forget about Toyne
#6 by Brian on July 23, 2013 - 4:39 PM

Pierce is the major player in the market and is most notable being the factory is close to here in Wisconsin.

Other major players in the market include (I hope I get them all), Ferrara, Crimson(Spartan ERV), E-One, Sutphen, Rosenbauer, Seagrave, Marion and KME.

Here is a complete listing – http://www.firetruckleasing.com/fireindinfo-listfiremanufacturers.htm
#7 by Bob on July 23, 2013 - 1:47 PM

I had never even heard of Smeal before this week, & all of a sudden, 2 Smeal purchases just like that. I pretty much assumed Pierce owned the fire truck market.