The truck, tender, and satellite units were all housed in a specially built station that was located to give them the best response time to downtown and points outside of the city. Here we see the pumper rig and tender leaving the station. The Satellite trucks would normally get on scene first to lay out their positions and prepare to get hooked to the pump.
Notice that the water cannons are off fire dept boats
Mack was awarded the contract to build the truck in 1964.
The top speed of the whole rig was 42mph but since it was intended for responding to calls in the city, high mph was not as much a concern as maneuverability, and the ability to zip around at lower speeds happily.
In 1967 the Super Pumper responded to a fire at a postal annex in NYC and managed to supply water to the massive gun on the tender truck, its three satellite units, two tower ladder trucks, and a portable manifold with multiple hand lines all by itself.
The hoses on the truck were pressure tested to 1,000psi of pressure but typically operated anywhere in the 350-800psi range depending on the situation. This is way higher what modern trucks use by our understanding. The hoses were a derivative of hoses developed by the Navy in WWII for high pressure applications and while incredibly heavy when compared to modern hoses, they were cutting edge at the time.
The keystone of the whole operation was the massive central pumping unit that could draw water from eight hydrants at once, drop lines into bodies of water, supply a mind-boggling number of lines with water simultaneously, and flow over 10,000 gallons per minute at low pressures if the situation called for it. When the pressure was ramped up to to 350psi, it could move 8,800 GPM. This was enough to supply the other satellite trucks as well as feed a massive water cannon on the tender truck that could heave water over 600ft.
The grunt for the Super Pumper system came from a Napier-Deltic diesel engine. This was an engine designed by the British during WWII as a lightweight, high speed means to propel their ships and locomotives.
Making 2,400 horsepower and even more prodigious torque numbers, the engine was “light” enough to be mounted in a trailer behind a tractor and carted around.
The engine’s design is interesting in the fact that it had three crankshafts and was an opposed piston style engine meaning that the pistons travel at each other.
With turbochargers and a two stroke design, it was as mighty a compact piston powered engine the world had ever known to that point. It was thirsty, 137 gallons of diesel fuel per hour and the noise was so deafening that firemen near the truck had to wear hearing protection.
By the time of its retirement in April 1982, FDNY's super pumper had responded to more than 2,200 calls, and it even took over the task of a failed pumping station in the city's municipal water supply at one time.
There is even a book: "The Super Pumper System" by John A. Calderone - The entire history of the Super Pumper is covered: from its basic concept, awarding of the contract to Mack Trucks in 1963; construction, selection of firehouses and personnel, official acceptance and placement in service in 1965, gradual decline in the 1970’s, and eventual elimination from active service in 1982.
it's now in a museum in Bay City Michigan
http://toyandfiretruckmuseum.org/
http://www.firechief.com/2016/01/08/the-greatest-fire-pumper-the-world-has-known/
http://bangshift.com/bangshiftxl/mack-super-pumper-system-locomotive-engine-powered-pumper-extinguish-hell-often/
wonder what they replaced it with?
ReplyDeleteWhat? There's an Antuque Toy and Firetruck Museum? Putting that one on the list! Thanks for this piece.
ReplyDelete1) The first and fourth images are from my Flickr account; please kindly credit such as Stanley Goldstein photo; archives of Philip M. Goldstein.
ReplyDelete2) The water monitor on the Super Tender (not "gun") was not off a fireboat. It was built at the time of contract for the Super Pumper System, and was a Stang Intelligiant Monitor.
3) The Super Pumper system could also draft water from dockside/ bulkhead, or from be supplied by fireboat, hence the predominantly stainless steel construction of the DeLaval pump. (which also added to cost.) Therefore the SPS would not be reliant on the NYC hydrant system, especially so in drought or low water pressure, or remote situations.
4) "The truck, tender, and satellite units were all housed in a specially built station". Not all the Super Pumper Satellite units were housed at 172 Tillary Street - Ladder 110 / Engine 207 / Battalion 31 / Division 11 - Brooklyn, NY. While one satellite was, the two other satellites were based in Staten Island and the Bronx, with two more satellites ordered in 1970 IIRC, with one being stationed in Manhattan and one spare. (If I remember correctly it was housed at Randall’s Island, which gave it easy access to Manhattan, Bronx and Queens via the Triborough Bridge).
5) There was also a design flaw in the Super Pumper System, which was not publicized or realized until after it was service. The engineer of the SPS related to my father, the Napier Deltic pump engine was compressed air start (as most naval diesels were). The pony motor to power the air compressor was mounted on the rear of the cab of the SP cab. The Mack END864 in a cab over engine configuration was very time consuming to work on (having to tilt the cab forward for maintenance, not to mention the cramped conditions under said cab for all the engine appliances.
Therefore, when needing servicing, the Napier Deltic pump engine was inoperable without the compressed air pony motor. Had the pony motor and air compressor been mounted to the trailer unit, any standard 5th wheel equipped semi-tractor could pull the Super Pumper trailer. But, this was not the case. Furthermore, adding the compressor to the trailer would have made the trailer less compact and at least 3 feet longer and therefore would have increased difficulty in negotiating city streets. Without the SP tractor, the trailer was inoperative, so when one was out of service, both were out of service.
6) As FDNY Pumpers of the 1960's only had a capacity of 1000 gpm, and as more efficient and more powerful pump designs were developed, pumpers (properly called "engines" in FDNY parlance) became of larger capacity. The Super Pumper System was partially replaced with the Maxi Water System, which was based at E207 as well and had 2000 gpm. But as 2000 gpm became standard and as these newer engines were purchased, the everyday FDNY engine response became more powerful, so a single centralized unit such as the Super Pumper became obsolete. However, the Satellite Units remained in use for many years after the retirement of the Super Pumper itself.
I hope this clarifies your post.
Sincerely,
Philip M. Goldstein
See the links? Those are my sources for the images. If I had found them on anyone's Flikr, I would have included that link too.
DeleteThanks for the info.
I'm deleting your photos, I don't credit people, I include links to MY sources.
When someone gets weird like you're doing, I erase the issue, because I ain't got time for bullshit