Coming from an American perspective it's odd not seeing a fully custom-built apparatus, I mean we have commercial chassis too but their rare, used for smaller applications. It's very interesting to say the least, and a lot of work goes into them for sure.
We used to have fully custom built appliances in the UK up until recently. The major builders being Dennis, Shelvoke, ERF & Dodge. Unfortunatly the vast majority of these companies went bankrupt by the late 90s - early 00s because commercial chassis were becoming easier and cheaper to buy and convert then it was to get a custom appliance built.
On this side of the pond custom built apparatus are very rare; Most custom built apparatus these days are ARFF Crash Tenders, in the past decades also municipal-sized versions of ARFF Crash Tenders were built by e.g. Rosenbauer but they never got very popular. Rosenbauer now comes up with a custom-built apparatus again, this time a hybrid-electric fire truck designed for municipal fire departments. Apart from those few exceptions most fire apparatus are built on a commercial chassis like the ones from Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Scania, MAN, Iveco etc. As Ford is now present in the commercial truck sector maybe we'll see some of those in the fleets in the next few years as well
I love seeing that difference. I can see how commercial chassis are beneficial where you live. I’m not saying what we do is bad either, just interesting to see these differences in how the same job is done in different ways. Not to mention build and style as well, just fascinated me.
We now use blue led's on Fire Trucks in Ontario, Canada!
Coming from an American perspective it's odd not seeing a fully custom-built apparatus, I mean we have commercial chassis too but their rare, used for smaller applications. It's very interesting to say the least, and a lot of work goes into them for sure.
We used to have fully custom built appliances in the UK up until recently. The major builders being Dennis, Shelvoke, ERF & Dodge. Unfortunatly the vast majority of these companies went bankrupt by the late 90s - early 00s because commercial chassis were becoming easier and cheaper to buy and convert then it was to get a custom appliance built.
On this side of the pond custom built apparatus are very rare; Most custom built apparatus these days are ARFF Crash Tenders, in the past decades also municipal-sized versions of ARFF Crash Tenders were built by e.g. Rosenbauer but they never got very popular.
Rosenbauer now comes up with a custom-built apparatus again, this time a hybrid-electric fire truck designed for municipal fire departments.
Apart from those few exceptions most fire apparatus are built on a commercial chassis like the ones from Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Scania, MAN, Iveco etc. As Ford is now present in the commercial truck sector maybe we'll see some of those in the fleets in the next few years as well
I love seeing that difference. I can see how commercial chassis are beneficial where you live. I’m not saying what we do is bad either, just interesting to see these differences in how the same job is done in different ways.
Not to mention build and style as well, just fascinated me.
I love fire trucks you never know something big could save lives
Pretty cool
Should have more lights on the back of Emergency vehicles,and bull horns they need to stand out like the American Emergency vehicles do.
Mate, American ones aren’t visible from the sides, were we have the red and yellow pattern and you can see the side in the night it’s more visible.