Photo: Megan Sabell VFD
In the mid 1930s, the VFD purchased a Studebaker
truck chassis with the purpose of converting it - the basic
chassis, power train and cowl – to a pumper. Their intention
was to acquire an additional piece of apparatus at less cost.
It was normally VFD practice to contract a fire engine builder
to build a custom rig but these were tough times and there
was little money during the Depression, even for fire apparatus.
The truck, equipped with a 110hp Waukesha
engine—standard power for Studebaker trucks at the time
– was turned over to Meston’s on Johnson St. That
well- known Victoria company, built carriage and wagon bodies,
and then made the transition from horse drawn vehicles to
trucks.
The Fire Department felt that they could
make a small budget go even further if they used the body
off another, earlier VFD rig that had been retired. Meston’s
made what changes were necessary to make this body fit and
conform to other VFD specifications and attached it to the
Studebaker chassis. A 100 gpm pump, with controls, was attached.
It’s quite possible that fire equipment came from other
trucks: hard suction hose, booster reel, ladders, and other
equipment such as warning lights and siren. The truck normally
carried 200 feet of ¾ inch hose, 450 feet of 1 ½
inch hose and 1500 feet of 2 ½ inch hose. This load
was supplied by the department.
This apparatus protected James Bay during
WWII from a converted house on the 400 block of Superior St.
The shipyards and wartime housing in the district made a fire
department presence in James Bay necessary. Until the war,
fire responses, from 1918, were from downtown.
The ‘Com’ as it became known,
returned to No.1 Hall and responded to grass fires until it
was struck off the roster in the late 1970s. It then served
a fire department on Piers Island, until being donated to
the British Columbia Transport Museum in the early 1980s.
Upon the dissolution of that collection, the Studebaker was
returned to the Victoria Fire Department for preservation.
In 2005, the VFDHS started a major frame-off
restoration. It was discovered at this time, that the body
of the ‘Com’ may well have come from the 1914
Nott Universal Hose Wagon.
Text: David Parker, Historian/Curator,
VFDHS
Photo: Ted Alexis, VFDHS
At work on the Combination
- the engine and chassis are nearing completion
Photo: Ted Alexis, VFDHS
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