Roger Mardon fire service history

www.romar.org.uk

Fire service historian and author

Roger Mardon

www.romar.org.uk

American La France

December 2005

It was announced on 15 December 2005 that the highly regarded US fire engine builder, American La France (ALF), has been acquired by Patriarch Partners. ALF will continue its pumper and tanker production at Ladson, South Carolina, and unused floorspace in the facility will be used by Daimler-Chrysler for the production of Dodge Sprinter vans. All work can continue at the present plant until well into 2007 but the organisation is looking for a new headquarters and manufacturing facility. Sites in the Ladson/Charleston area are currently being considered.

Carmichael

November 2005

Amdac-Carmichael is not transferring its production to Malaysia, after all. The proposed move of production facilities reported earlier is not being implemented by Carmichael’s new owners because of the enormity of the task. Full production at Worcester will therefore continue as before.

The company has a very healthy order book and has just secured a large contract for Cobra 2 crash tenders for the Middle East, while the last two of six 8x8 appliances for Namibia will soon be delivered to Protec-Fire in Spain. The BAA airports at Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively have new Cobra 2 vehicles completed or nearly completed and Doncaster’s Robin Hood Airport should be receiving its two by the end of November. Amdac-Carmichael is building other types of fire engine for a number of different customers and is expecting to maintain a strong UK production base for the future.

Bachert

October 2005

Amdac has acquired the German fire engine refurbishing plant of Bachert. The company will concentrate on producing portable and vehicle-mounted centrifugal fire pumps for the whole Amdac Group.

Carmichael

October 2005

Carmichael, acquired by Amdac (UK) last year (see below), has announced that it will cease production in Worcester of fire engine chassis and some bodywork parts. Production of these elements will be moved to Malaysia and the Worcester operation will provide sales, service, refurbishment and training for Cobra and Viper crash tenders as well as conventional fire engines.

Kent International (Manston) Airport

August 2005

The assets and business of Planestation plc, erstwhile operators of London Manston/Kent International Airport and EU Jet, have been bought from the company’s administrators by Infratil Ltd for £17m. Infratil already operates Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

Kent International is compliant with Category 6 fire cover, consistent with large freight and narrow body passenger jet operations, but has a 2,752 metre runway able to handle Boeing 747s and the new Airbus A380.

American La France

July 2005

North America’s commercial vehicle manufacturer, Freightliner, announced that it intends to sell its American La France fire and emergency services manufacturing arm. ALF was founded in 1903 by the merger of several companies, including American Fire Engine Company of Seneca Falls, New York and La France Fire Engine Company of Elmira, New York. It has been part of the Freightliner organisation since 1995.

Direct Access Platforms (DAP)

June 2005

Direct Access Platforms went into receivership on 13 June 2005. The company undertook the installation, rechassis conversion work and servicing of Simon and Magirus hydraulic platforms.

Saxon Specialist Vehicles

May 2005

Fire engine builder Saxon SVB was founded by former Cheshire Fire Engineering staff when CFE closed down in 1982. Two years later the company became known as Saxon Sanbec, after the old name for Sandbach in Cheshire where the company is based. In 1987 the company became a member of the Johnston Group, an organisation also with interests in Johnston roadsweepers (UK), Madvac roadsweepers (USA), Norquip airport servicing vehicles and MacDonald Johnston Engineering (Australia). The company was renamed Saxon Specialist Vehicles in 2002.

In July 2004 Johnston was the subject of a £48.3m bid by Ennstone which was interested in the group’s quarrying and stone operations, rather than the fire engine and road sweeper businesses. After an unsuccessful rival bid for the Johnston Group by Tarmac, in October Ennstone completed its take-over and, as predicted, began seeking buyers for the engineering arms, including Saxon.

Just before Christmas 2004 Saxon SV announced that it was to cease trading once it had completed orders in hand. The staff of approximately 100 were issued with redundancy notices and the factory officially closed on 23 March 2005. However some staff remained for two or three weeks to complete the vehicles in build.

Under construction on 10 March were nine Volvo FLH water tenders for Greater Manchester, a MAN LE18.280 heavy rescue tender with HIAB crane and a MAN LE10.180 environmental response unit for Avon, and a Scania 94D-300 major incident unit with Moffett-Kooi fork lift truck and a Scania 94D-300 / Vema aerial rescue pump for Strathclyde. The last mentioned was destined to be the final Saxon fire appliance completed.

News 2005