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Bells on trucks
I was at a firehouse with my grandson who asked why do fire trucks have bells on them. I told him that bells predate sirens and they were kept around afterwards because of the tradition of the bell being part of the history of the trucks and company they were mounted on. In my former department ( on long island, NY) the bell(s) on our trucks have been on all of the trucks that have served in that firehouse and company since it was created and they are inscribed with the trucks and years the bell was on
Do any of you still have bells on your trucks and if you do do you transfer them to new rigs and inscribe them?
i'm just curious because only one department in my county has a bell on it (that i know of) and as i was telling that story, the younger guys had never heard that about bells before
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jim Conrad on
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Only our parade truck has a bell on it. But the way you describe the tradition it sounds pretty cool. If none of the young guys believe you I saw a cool old movie of FDNY in the twenties or thirties on Statter(I think). They had a camera mounted in the Chief buggy and it showed the bell being rung like crazy!
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Permalink Reply by Timothy John Dodson on
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Our new KME pumper is the only piece of apparatus in our department that has a bell. It has very detailed artwork on it and looks very sharp.
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Permalink Reply by Will B on
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We recently put one on our tower. We were doing a bunch of cleaning up at the station and found the bell laying under the work bench in the maintenance room. I took it and cleaned up the mounting hardware and painted it then polished up the bell alittle.
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Permalink Reply by Shane Griffith on
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Bells are always a good classic. I get excited when I see a bell on a newer(ish) apparatus. Even though we don't have bells on ours. I think bells are a great addition to an apparatus. Bells should be a tradition that never dies!
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