Between the years 1900 and 1911, fierce competition raged among fire apparatus manufacturers to build the gas-powered engine that would ultimately lead to the demise of the horse-drawn steamer. Foremost among these firms was the Waterous Engine Works from St. Paul, Minnessota. Waterous had begun the process in 1898 when it produced a horse-drawn petrol power pumper. The pump was now gas-powered, but it still had to be drawn to a fire. In March of 1906, Waterous produced an engine that had two motors: one to power the pump and one to power the vehicle. It was in this history-making year that the Radnor Fire Company of Wayne, Pennsylvania placed into service the first fire fighting automobile ever employed in the United States. This was a giant step in the development of fire fighting equipment. Indeed, so quickly was fire fighting technology advancing that, in the following year, Waterous developed a single engine pumper capable of powering both propulsion and pumping. Now, the historic 1906 Waterous Fire Engine has been carefully re-created in a die-cast model for The International Fire Engine Collection: The Turn-of-the-Century Edition.

Scale: 1:43