Metro Star for Halifax Regional

Following on our M for March theme, Halifax Regional Municipality Fire & Emergency Service has received its order of new rescue pumpers and at least two are now in service in my neighbourhood. Engine 2, based at the University Avenue station is the first of the order, and is numbered 11-528E.
1. Head on view of the new Engine 2 Metro Star cab.

2. Bumper load of noise, includes Federal Signal electronic siren, Federal turbine and air horns.

3. The Metro Star has a roomy cabin, with flat floor in the crew compartment.

4. The body has hinged doors, not the roll up type usually found on new engines. Also note the tire chain system, just ahead of the rear tires.

Built by Carl Thibault on a Spartan Metro Star chassis, it carries a 1250 gpm Watrous pump and 500 gallon tank and all the other gear required for its demanding job. Station 2 is the busiest in the Halifax Regional Municipality and this engine is called out many times a day.

One notable thing about this engine (and its three sisters, numbered 11-529E, 11-530E and 11-531E) is that it is the decibel winner! Featuring a typical electronic siren, a traditional turbine type Q-siren (really loud-123 decibels at 10 ft) and air horns (super loud) it can be heard above most urban din.

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MArch MAN

Lots of truck brands start with M, including M.A.N. (or MAN as its now called). This venerable German manufacturer is little seen in Canada, although I have posted a few on this site before.
1. Mack has its bulldog, M.A.N. has its lion.

2. One of three MAN model TGS 33,400 that arrived in Halifax by ship in December 2011. They left town on Fastrax trucks, likely for conversion work.

3. The shipping labels didn't tell me much but might be of interest.

One M.A.N. that was actually based in Halifax - and the only one on the road here, was a small single screw tractor operated by Kitchen City a seller of European style kitchen furnishings.

4. Taken on August 16, 1989, this little semi named "Annemarie" was active for a few years. It was nicely fitted with headlight screens, fog lamps and a typical Euro type cab sleeper. A pretty little rig.

It was certainly a unique sight but did not last long, as I think the company went out of business.

The only other MANs in the areas are a pair of prime movers, operated by Leil, which I have shown before.
MAN SE as it is now known, was taken over by Volkswagen last year and it is expected that there will be some combining of operations with their Scania truck line. MAN is a world wide company with truck, bus and diesel engine manufacturing as their primary activities. So far they have not attempted to crack the North American truck market. Will that change?

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MARch and MARmons - again!

Back in March 2010 when I declared that March should be Marmon month, I also declared that I had no more Marmon tilt cab photos.
http://truckfax.blogspot.com/2010/03/march-should-be-marmon-month.html
Well my recent all too brief road trip to Maine reminded me that deep in a shoe box were some slides taken on another jaunt through Maine back in 1980, when I did see more Marmons!
The late lamented Texas manufacturer of premium trucks (Not the Best Known, Just the Best) produced these specialties from 1963 to 1997. Some did sneak across the border from time to time, but most were confined to the US.

Mars Hill, ME, in the Saint John River valley, shares with its nearby New Brunswick neighbours the centre of potato production in the east. Trucks come from far and wide to load the taters and and this quartet of Florida plated Marmon COEs, when I saw them on September 6, 1980, were laying over for the Labour Day weekend, just before potato harvest time started up in earnest for another year.

As you will learn in subsequent posts, there are other trucks whose names begin with M and we will have an M month after all.

Pete to beat

In my road trip posting I showed a "tow anything" Peterbilt. It may have been limited as the size of what it could tow.
This Pete, spotted this morning on the waterfront, could pretty much tow anything too. It is operated by Lussier, the used truck and equipment sales outfit from Ste-Julie, QC. It arrived towing a truck for export. I didn't see what it was towing, but it could have been anything from a school bus on up.
I've posted about them before - there's more info at http://www.lussier.ca/

The towing gear is mounted to the fifth wheel and can be removed if the truck is needed for towing a semi-trailer.

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Road Trip Results

A weekend road trip turned up many interesting vehicles. The downside was most of then I saw at night or in a snow storm!
Here are a couple of highlights.
1. Sleek Pete with a full fender skirt kit was towing an Eager Beaver trailer, with an elderly crawler and an even older engine on a pallet. Out of Southampton, NY he was laying over in Bangor, ME. He's missing the driver's side hood mounted mirror - maybe left it in the woods.

2. In addition to the low level exhaust and tool box in the skirts, this truck had a standard semi-trailer fifth wheel, a camper type 'fifth wheel' hitch, and the trailer hitch he was using. This is pretty much a tow anything rig.

3. An impossibly clean milk tanker at Salisbury, NB had just come from the company's own tank and truck wash at nearby Sussex. The set-back axle and classic Freightliner look also made this a standout at the Ultramar truck stop.

4. R&G Transport has now become Eagle Transportation, but the older rigs have not been repainted. They specialize in food grade liquids and now cover the eastern half of Canada and the US. See www.eagletransportation.ca - "about eagle" and "a proud history" for more info.

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Merc and MAN - trucks in transit

One of the advantages of living in a port city is to catch a glimpse of trucks in transit. In this case a small fleet of transit mixers from Spain. Unfortunately only two were in position for a photo, but there were about half a dozen of those on the deck of a ship. They had to be offloaded temporarily to access the cargo in the hold below, and so were landed on the dock.

As soon as the ship is unloaded, they will go back on and be delivered to their destination.

The trucks are painted for Prefabricados Luis Barros P.L., a builder in Nigran, Spain (that's in the far northeast, near Vigo.) It is likely they are headed for Central or South America.

The vehicle on the left is a Mercedes Atego and the big one on the right is an MAN. Both popular trucks in Europe, but rarely seen in these models in North America.

And of course they are COEs, which are still built in large numbers on the other side of the Atlantic, but , aside from delivery trucks, are becoming rare over here.

A couple of observations- the trucks have no clearance lights. The MAN has a broken sun visor, which reveals a pair of sensors? or some device above the top corners of the windshield.

[SEE COMMENT BELOW ON THIS]
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No Pies for the Quiz

My assortment of delectable pies will have to remain in the freezer.

Since no correct answers were received by the judges, no prize will be awarded - this time. However, following Truckfax policy in these matters, the prize pie for this quiz will be added to the jackpot, so that the next time there is a quiz (if ever) - two pies will be awarded for the first correct answer.

Back to Quiz 1:

1. The truck on the lift is a Ford. It was operated by Auto Haulaway Ltd

2. The other vehicles are:

left: American Motors Corp Rambler American Classic (1961)(note gun sight mirror)

right: Mercury Meteor 600 (1961)(I LOVE the gun sights on the fenders - it was 1960s thing!)

back: GMC (in the larger photo, you can see the GMC logo in the car's windshield.)

3. The year was 1966.

4. The location was the Arrow Garage, corner of St. Clair and MacNaughton, Chatham, Ontario (note the P.C.C. license plates,)

5. The Ford is a 1961-1963 era. It has the low roof on the cab (a higher roof was added in later model years.)

The GMC is 1955-1959. The "panoramic" windshield, a.k.a the wrap around, was introduced in the 1956-57 model year.

So to those dejected losers, better luck next time!

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