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Fire ! Fire ! Fire !

In one of the model rail mag's a reader was 'complaining' he was unable to get a scale model fire engine for the steam loco era for his 'OO' loco's.

I had a quick look around the web and found nothing.

I know Triang did one for their Mimic Motorway in the early 60's, also a steam wagon, but these are now few & far between and the plastic tended to warp I understand.

Visited a county show on Saturday and they and a large marquee containing models of all types from boats, Lego (I never knew they produced a monorail train set !), Meccano and on one table a collection of fire engines, but non suitable for 'OO'.

My next port of call was the toy stands, one stall holder said he can not get hold of any but claims he could sell hundreds throughout the year.

One of the problems may be that up until 1941 there was no National Fire Service as local fires were dealt with by the local police. In fact a number of police offices had to be transferred into the new National Fire Service in the 40's as they were the only people with experience of the equipment.

My collection of 'Matchbox' vehicles included some old fire engines and a 'Green Goddess'.

Chris

Reply to
Dragon Heart
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That is not quite correct, prior to WW2 the fire brigades were provided by the local authorities . Before 1938 there were between 1400 and 1500 small municipal fire brigades run by local councils in the UK. Just prior to WW2 the Auxiliary Fire Service was formed. This was a National organisation of volunteers to back up the normal fire service. It became apparent during the war that some local fire provision was inadequate, consequently the thousand or so local brigades were combined into the National Fire Service. The NFS was disbanded after the war (1948), and once again fire provision was in local hands, but this time mainly based at county or borough level, so the were far fewer brigades than before the war (148) , but each still went its own way. There are at present 63 brigades in the UK.

Regards Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

I forgot to add that the existing appliances were not disposed of when the NFS was formed, additional vehicles were added, but some of those amounted to no more than a van with ladders on the roof, although there were mobile pumps as well.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

They were mainly part-time volunteers before the war. The City of Coventry didn't get its own professional brigade until 1935 and I believe that was one of the first in the country? Before that, the Daimler Motor Company had its own full-time professional firemen and they routinely beat the local authority firemen to the scene of a fire. It was the threat of German bombing which prompted the creation of the unified 999 emergency phone service (also the national blood transfusion service).

Kim

Reply to
kim

Kiel Kraft did a Dennis fire engine in 1:72 scale.

Reply to
Arthur Figgis

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:41:10 -0700 (PDT), Dragon Heart said in :

The Airfix airfield fire and refuelling kits are still available, using the base vehicles from one or both of those and a modicum of the BRITONS' ingenuity I would think you could come up with something passable. The Austin ambulance would probably be a good start. There also used to be a Bedford dropside of approximately the right vintage which would be amenable to adaptation, but I can't remember for the life of me who made it.

Also:

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Guy

Reply to
Just zis Guy, you know?

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