| Hamden Fire Retirees Association, Inc. |
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014
Website is updated every Friday - Important interim updates will be posted when necessary
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43rd Annual Antique Fire Apparatus Show and Muster
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Eisenhower Park, Milford
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08:00 Motorcade line-up at the Liberty Rock Shopping Plaza
08:30 Firematic flea market opens at muster site
09:00 Motorcade through Milford center to Eisenhower Park
10:00 Opening ceremonies
10:30 Competition and judging begins
17:00 Awards and trophy presentations
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Featured this year is a beautifully restored 102-year old American-LaFrance city service ladder truck, owned and operated by the Southampton (NY) Fire Department.
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| 1912 American-LaFrance City Service Ladder Truck CLICK to enlarge |
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The Hamden Fire Department's first new ladder truck in twenty years was placed in service in September 1990 with the delivery of this Pierce 105' rear mount "quint" aerial ladder truck. The new truck replaced Hamden's 1958 Maxim 75' and 1970 Maxim 100' aerial trucks. Both had been removed from service earlier in the year after an independent testing service declared them unsafe. In the interim the East Haven Fire Department lent the department its spare 1968 Seagrave 100' aerial ladder truck, which ran as Truck 1 out of Station 3 until the new truck was placed in service.
For years the department had been trying to acquire a replacement for the older trucks, but the chief's requests always fell on deaf political ears. Finally, following the May 1988 fire at the Davenport Residence, when New Haven and Cheshire each responded with a ladder truck through mutual aid, the Council scrambled to bond one new aerial truck in each of the next two fiscal years.
Hamden acquired its second new ladder truck with the delivery of the 1991 Pierce 100' tower ladder. The 1990 truck was then transferred to Station 5 as Truck 5. Equipped with a pump, attack lines and a tank of modest capacity, Truck 5 responded as an engine company on still alarms within its territory. On box assignments it functioned as a truck company.
At the time, the conventional wisdom among department members of all ranks was that the Town's purchase of two aerial trucks was typical Council overkill, when one ladder truck and two new pumpers for the same dime would have been preferable. But HFD got two new aerial trucks anyway, and waited seven more years for a new pumper to replace one that was 30 years old.
Now a spare, the 1990 Pierce 105' aerial truck is housed at Station 9. The 1991 Pierce 100' tower ladder was sold three years ago to the Austin (Indiana) Fire Department.
Posted 9/5/14
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| Hamden's 1990 Pierce 105' rear-mount aerial ladder truck at Station 5 (Photo by Frank Wegloski, courtesy of Daryl Osiecki) |
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| Hamden 1991 Pierce was sold to Austin (Indiana) Fire Dept. in 2011. (Photo by Frank Wegloski, courtesy of Daryl Osiecki) |
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| 1966 Field Day |
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Once in awhile you find a photo you didn't know you had. This photo is cropped from a portion of a slide taken with the camera belonging to Ed Doiron, Sr. Since Ed is in the picture, the photo was most likely taken by Ed's first wife Pat during the June 12, 1966 Field Day at Brookvale Park. (That's the Field Day that was cut short by the fire at the Connecticut Doughnut Company.)
Standing (L-R) are Capt. Francis "Chalky" Leddy (are those "high tops?"), Ff. Jerold Bradbury, Ff. Russ Smith, Lt. Joe McDermott and Ff. Ed Doiron. In the uncropped original photo everyone is staring at the water trough for the bucket brigade.
When this photo was shot all of these guys, except Smith, worked on "old" Platoon 1. Capt. Leddy was at Station 2 and the rest were stationed at Putnam Avenue on Engine 3 and Rescue 1. Ff. Smith was on "old" Platoon 3. Within a few months of this photo Bradbury and Smith both left the department for jobs in private industry. Leddy retired in 1986, McDermott in 1991 and Doiron in 1993.
Posted 9/5/14
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From The New Haven Register, Wednesday, September 4, 1963: Hamden firemen burned down a frame building Tuesday as a training exercise. The building was on the Olin Mathison Co. "powder farm" on Putnam Avenue. About a dozen firemen took part under the direction of Deputy Fire Chief Daniel Hume, the department's training officer. Fire Chief William Johnson [Sr.] of West Haven and Chief Thomas Hayes of East Haven attended the exercise as observers. (Photo and article courtesy of Chan Brainard)
Posted 9/5/14
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| September 3, 1963 - Exterior Live Fire Training, Winchester Powder Farm off Putnam Avenue |
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Unsafe At Any Speed
That was the title of Ralph Nader's 1965 exposé that led to many safety modifications on automobiles manufactured after its publication. Nader's book focused on design shortcomings in Chevy Corvairs manufactured between 1960 and 1964. The Corvair demolished in this double fatality was a later model, but all Corvairs had a rear mounted engine which could cause handling problems. During the first week of September 1966 a pair of Cheshire residents found this out the hard way. Traveling at a high rate of speed around a curve on wet pavement, the rear end of this vehicle swung sideways and slammed into the telephone pole at the northeast corner of Whitney Avenue and Carmel Street. The last Corvairs came off the assembly line in 1969.
Posted 9/5/14
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| September 1966 - An unidentified Hamden police officer examines the wreckage of a late-model Chevy Corvair at the corner of Whitney and Carmel. |
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| At the 9th Annual Engine 260 Muster at Milford's Eisenhower Park, the crew of this pre-1910 Christie tractor-drawn steamer scurries to draft water from a trough. (Photo by Harold Wheatley - Posted 9/5/14) |
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