I became curious about how much a new ladder truck cost. It's a cool million bucks. Those pumper trucks-- About $700,000, fully equipped.
So when you drive by a firehouse and see a pumper truck or two, or a ladder truck, that's some serious money on wheels.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
Is that MSRP or do they get a first responder discount?
My sister is very tolerant of the project vehicles my BiL brings home. She put her foot down when he found a late-70s (IIRC) LaFrance pumper truck...
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits - Mark Twain
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy / Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Probably no discount, those things are all custom-built to some degree. But rebuilding a pumper truck would be cool.Originally Posted by awp_101
I didn't know they still made tiller trucks. Makes sense, in cities with narrow streets and sharp corners, a standard ladder truck could get hung up.
Last edited by Stephanie B; 05-19-2020 at 08:18 AM.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
The town i work in has two tiller trucks now. We have a congested downtown with narrow streets, cobblestone in some places.
I was in a rural VFD back in the late 90’s. Back then we had to struggle to get enough monies for trucks which cost back then 80-100K.
Nowadays I’m amazed at the amount of equipment some departments have. To me, it seems that after 9/11, things changed.
My hometown is a small coastal community of less than 2000 population. Their fire department has equipment and stations which rival the large NC cities. I’ve had firefighter friends from those areas come in to visit and they are awestruck at what they see. In the past 10 years they have built a 10 million dollar station and a 1+ million ladder truck, and it’s all paid for, no loans.
Of course I still see some struggling VFD’s when travelling through the state. Much depends on the tax base of the department. Most FD’s are funded by fire tax dollars in NC. If they are in the middle of farm country, not much tax base, down on the coast-big $.
cc
Especially in the northeast, there's a lot of FDs with more funding than they know what to do with, and they very quickly get bitten by good idea fairies and the want for cool toys. Lots of shit that is completely unnecessary, and lots of things being done because it's simply the way they've done things without any critical thought being applied.
If FD budgets looked like EMS budgets, the equipment they were running in a lot of places would look a lot different. You can see that just in FDs that do EMS vs standalone EMS agencies, and FDs using gigantic "medium-duty" trucks for no good reason that are mostly empty and cost $175-200k+ a pop compared to a Type II ("van-bulance") at $75k or truck/van conversion chassis cost around $100-125k. The idea of medium-duty EMS rigs came from a west coast Fire/Rescue agency that had firefighter EMT/Medics carry not only their fire turnout gear but also light rescue gear on the ambulances and employed accordingly....a fraction of departments using medium duties actually do that, it's just cool to have a big truck. So, the same thing happens to FDs, and all of my buddies in fire back in NJ admitted it.
Maybe it's just my jaded bitterness of working in public safety in the northeast, but IMO look to the midwest and west coast for leaders in equipment deployment and TTPs....or at least anywhere except the NE, I guess. Seems to hold true for fire, EMS and police. IDK....I just fucking hate the northeast after living there for so long.
ETA: Just to be completely clear, I'm all for FDs having good equipment and being able to do their job. I'm not saying they should undergo extreme austerity measures like PDs are going through....but, what I fucking hate are seeing firefighters' jobs dependent on SAFER grants, and FFs laid off and running 3 dudes to an engine, when they could be saving money not buying ridiculous apparatus they don't fucking need and is mostly unnecessary for the job.
Last edited by TGS; 05-19-2020 at 10:33 AM.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
The engineering in those ladder trucks is amazing. My department used aerial platforms instead of straight ladders. The platform was 102 feet up at full extension. We could swing it perpendicular to the truck with 1000 pounds in the bucket and lower it to negative 4 degrees at full extension without exceeding stability limits. We could fly in 40 MPH sustained winds. When bedded, those ladders look and feel as solid as can be. When flying, especially at low angles, the arch you'd see along the ladder was impressive. They're an expensive, complicated tool. In most cities you don't utilize their full potential very often but when you need it, you really need it.
Theres a guy locally who bought a pumper at city auction for a pittance. It had been at the firefighter school for training purposes so it was full functional and maintained. He could have sold just the motor and gotten multiples of what he paid for the entire truck.
Its so cool to see that sitting in his driveway. He takes it out for parades, birthdays etc etc.
I'll wager you a PF dollar™ 😎
The lunatics are running the asylum
As one might imagine, for historical reasons, Chicago takes the threat of fire quite seriously. What amazes me is that we basically have a sub-station for every 2 square miles within the city limits. If the trucks are costing 700k, that's a lot of dough on trucks alone. I honestly thought they were a couple of hundred grand, not 700-1 million.
@TGS' rant about NE emergency services reminds me of a great movie scene -
The other odd thing in buying fire rigs is the amount of customization. Too many agencies spend a ton of time and money specing out "their" apparatus so it's just perfect. We'd all be better off if we looked at what worked well at Department X and just bought three of those off the rack. Then you have the poor workmanship of the builders to deal with. We used three or four different manufacturers during my career. Every rig we ever received needed all sorts of fixes and rework to make it fully functional. This was an expected standard in the industry and I could never understand it.
A friend's father runs a tour company for vacationers. He's got 800+ buses and vans. I asked him what the price on a nice tour bus is, and he said "above 400k". A million for a firetruck sounds reasonable
Reply With Quote