DairyStateDad
Mumbling in the corner
This message started out to be a post at the Running Bear's Diner thread, but I decided instead to break it out as its own thread here.
I definitely want to have some kind of metalworking plant in one of my communities and have pretty much settled on a firetruck mfg operation. (This to honor a brother-in-law who has a brother in the fire service and who himself has a fondness for and interest in the firefighting profession.)
Although set in Up Nort' Wisconsin (as we like to generically refer to those parts), it would be inspired by (not necessarily modeled on) the old Peter Pirsch fire truck mfg operation that was in Kenosha, Wis., for decades. I've collected a few tidbits about it on the Internet and plan to hunt for more. I've also amassed a bunch of pix of fire trucks from approximately my mid-1930s area to help guide mfg.
Some questions or challenges.....
1. One has been finding inexpensive HO scale truck vehicles suitable to the 1930s that could be modified into a fire truck design.
I see MicroEngineering has come out with a subsidiary making a range of generic early 30s truck vehicles that look promising for kitbashing into this purpose, but other suggestions are welcome. I bought a 1939 Peterbilt Fire Truck in HO on eBay some months back to use as a general guideline,, but it's technically a bit later than my time period. Other suggestions?
2. RE: Fire Truck mfg, especially by smaller cos. outside the Big 3 automakers (if they're even in that business at all):
Has the general business model been that they take another mfr's base truck model and then retrofit it for fire service? [This is the approach that a variety of makers of specialty industrial trucks use.]
Or did they build it from the ground up? So would incoming traffic be loads of the generic trucks and outbound the finished modified trucks, or would incoming traffic simply be stuff like sheet metal, perhaps engines (unless those would be mfr'd in house, too) as well as component materials (rubber hoses, say, or other fittings).
3. Most likely transport means for the finished trucks -- flatcars, or that era's auto carriers, which were longer box cars w/ extra wide doors? (I have an old wooden kit for such a car that I bought for potential use for this purpose... And if it isn't likely suitable, I can always use it for shipping automobiles to the region from elsewhere.)
Welcome thoughts from any and all!
I definitely want to have some kind of metalworking plant in one of my communities and have pretty much settled on a firetruck mfg operation. (This to honor a brother-in-law who has a brother in the fire service and who himself has a fondness for and interest in the firefighting profession.)
Although set in Up Nort' Wisconsin (as we like to generically refer to those parts), it would be inspired by (not necessarily modeled on) the old Peter Pirsch fire truck mfg operation that was in Kenosha, Wis., for decades. I've collected a few tidbits about it on the Internet and plan to hunt for more. I've also amassed a bunch of pix of fire trucks from approximately my mid-1930s area to help guide mfg.
Some questions or challenges.....
1. One has been finding inexpensive HO scale truck vehicles suitable to the 1930s that could be modified into a fire truck design.
I see MicroEngineering has come out with a subsidiary making a range of generic early 30s truck vehicles that look promising for kitbashing into this purpose, but other suggestions are welcome. I bought a 1939 Peterbilt Fire Truck in HO on eBay some months back to use as a general guideline,, but it's technically a bit later than my time period. Other suggestions?
2. RE: Fire Truck mfg, especially by smaller cos. outside the Big 3 automakers (if they're even in that business at all):
Has the general business model been that they take another mfr's base truck model and then retrofit it for fire service? [This is the approach that a variety of makers of specialty industrial trucks use.]
Or did they build it from the ground up? So would incoming traffic be loads of the generic trucks and outbound the finished modified trucks, or would incoming traffic simply be stuff like sheet metal, perhaps engines (unless those would be mfr'd in house, too) as well as component materials (rubber hoses, say, or other fittings).
3. Most likely transport means for the finished trucks -- flatcars, or that era's auto carriers, which were longer box cars w/ extra wide doors? (I have an old wooden kit for such a car that I bought for potential use for this purpose... And if it isn't likely suitable, I can always use it for shipping automobiles to the region from elsewhere.)
Welcome thoughts from any and all!