South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service five years ago bought four fire engines costing more than half a million quid each, I read in today's paper. Three times in the past week they have burst into flames themselves and had to be put out by ordinary, budget fire engines without their special long-reach rescue ladders.
The spontaneously combusting fire engines are called Combined Aerial Rescue Platforms: Carps for short.
Snigger...
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Just another day in taxpayer funded paradise !
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It's worse.
They didn't use them for 3 years because they were too heavy to be legal.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8472456.stm
When they were modified at vast expense, the pompiers didn't want them anyway
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-11095125
As of this year only 2 of four were in service, with 2 being used for "training" and they were looking unreliable.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-13538142
More recently they have been described as "an absolute joke" and a threat to life.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-15201469
The fire service is still defending the CARPs and claiming they save £1m per year!
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My paper didn't say where they were made Manatee. Did any of your sources?
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According to one of the stories it''s the suppliers fault for getting the specs wrong.
Someone please tell me we taxpayers didn't pay for them when they are not useable.
Someone please tell me that if we did, the person responsible has been sacked with no golden handshake and no pension.
NURSE...more lunacy.
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>> My paper didn't say where they were made Manatee. Did any of your sources?
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Sadly a UK company, which seems to have been a licencee for a Dutch one that does airport fire truck bodies. Hence the modifications in the Netherlands I assume, since the UK company had gone bust by then.
If there's any substance to the the Wiki story, a bit of due diligence on the directors might have avoided a lot of trouble.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVAC
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Hardly an impartial Wiki entry that eh !
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Very murky story reading Wiki.Money wasted on not the right equipment.
Who is to blame the chief of the Fire Service.?
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Success has many fathers. Failure and cock-up are orphans. I doubt there's any clear responsibility.
But a fish usually rots from the head.
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I've looked at some fire egines they use at the airport in Luton and the once what are used on the Dutch airports.They are very similair and not like the engines what have been ordered by the Yorkshire brigade.
A similair mistake was made when a fire engine was ordered from Amerika by a company I used to work for.Beautifull machine massive but far to big for the job in hand.;)
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Fire appliances used for Airports are pretty unique in their application. IE airports only.
They are designed to pour a lot of foam in a very short time scale, over not very long (in firefighting terms) distances.
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This also applys to a chemical factory,the headache is tank fires and what the product is inside.That is why the majority of large chemical sites have their own brigade.
The largest chemical fire which occured her was Flixborough long time ago now.
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It gets worse. A number of planned combined control room stand empty.
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Not sure if it is the same type but couple of years ago Strathclyde Fire & Rescue had new appliances which were unstable in corners and one rolled on a roundabout. I believe they were then taken out of service.
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Son's nursery school had a visit from the local fire appliance for an hour's show-and-tell earlier this year. I was surprised at how compact the vehicle was, relatively speaking. Its footprint was certainly no bigger than a medium-sized 7.5 tonner, which I know from experience can be pretty chuckable :)
These huge great CARP things (yes, I sniggered too when I first heard the name) seem to be quite unsuited to the job.
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My mate tells me there spending cash like nowt else but the pension is in the fire and he may have to work till 60 now instead of 52.
So the Green Goddess will be back with us there talking of strikes again.
It's a hard life been a fireman, 2 days on then 2 nights on four off and repeats and you get a bed on nights! All i get is a uncomfortable chair to sleep in..................:-)
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Well, the digital tachograph has knocked one of their major sources of income on the head. Used to get a lot of firemen in the agency driver business, they were a godsend because they only wanted odd days rather than full weeks, they were often available mid-week when you needed extra bods and they didn't kick off if they missed the odd day.
Funny, they were all good drivers but you could never get 'em to do anything too physical.
Regrettably, I don't have much sympathy for any of their whinges about pay, and their constant threats of industrial action. Yes their job is dangerous, blah blah blah, but they knew that when they joined, and they're damn well paid for it. Their union bosses play too much on the public perceptions and fears for my liking.
To balance things up, they do have a very good pension scheme but they contribute a fair bit themselves; I suspect this is why most of them have second jobs, so they can retire at 52.
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When the transportation of prisoners was privatised, there was a story someone in the Prison Service told Group 4 the entrance to a jail was wider than it was.
Group 4 turn up with their shiny new prison van which won't fit through the gate, leading to the inevitable 'you don't know what you're doing' stories.
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That sort of stupidity, or lack of planning and foresight, isn't peculiar to the public sector.
Some years ago I was working for Marshalls, the brick and block makers. My job involved installing, commissioning and then operating a machine known as an "egg-layer", which made concrete drainage channel sections.
Ther machine arrived from Italy on a low-loader, and I spent my first day in charge of it with an oxy-acetylene torch in my hand, cutting six inches off the top of the loading hopper because someone higher up the food chain (my boss's boss in fact) had forgotten to measure the entrance door!
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The difference in the private world is that cock ups like that impact on profits and could lead to bankruptcy - no such risk in the public sector, just "move along nothing to see here" attitude and on to the next job.
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www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2011/10/08/new-fire-engine-fleet-unveiled-for-north-wales-55578-29559295/
Another bout of trumpet blowing. The story was even more badly written in the paper version claiming that the trucks had a smaller wheelbase when the hack obviously meant they were narrower. We wait with bated breath to see where this project will go wrong. Much the same ado a few years ago when the fools in charge of procurement bought ambulances that were too heavy for operational use and had to be re-configured at a huge cost.
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Staff at the Prison Service were not happy with the privatisation, prisoner escort duty to court and back - or to an another jail - was an easy day out, and broke up the monotony of working on the wings.
Group 4 (now called something else) is convinced to this day they were deliberately misled as an attempt to discredit them.
The same company also took a prisoner to Chester, Cheshire, when he should have gone to Chester-le-Street, County Durham.
They collected the prisoner from a jail only a few miles from Chester-le-Street, so the mistake looked even more crass.
The confusion probably arose because Chester-le-Street is known locally as 'Chester'.
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You are right the same can and does happen in the private sector.
We had loading arms fitted to the jettys which where not designed for a fast flowing river.
Problem after problem.There was money alloceted to spend and wasted in the end.
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Here in Blunderside several Chief Fire Officers temporarily acted up to a more senior position. They then retired on an enhanced pension worth a good bit more than what the should have had. Some anomaly in their terms and conditions.
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Tee hee... - R.P.
