New FDNY Tillers

baileyjeff · Saturday at 8:48 AM

memorymaster said:
As was done when the City bought Chicago's unwanted 1955 FWD 75 foot tiller rigs.

Where are you hearing this?

grumpy grizzly · Saturday at 9:24 AM

baileyjeff said:
Where are you hearing this?

I thought the 1955 units were 25 ordered from FWD, the last wooden aerials purchased by FDNY?

soda-acid · Saturday at 4:06 PM

The Chicago FWD tillers had nothing to do with New York. They had enclosed cabs.

memorymaster · 2025-06-08T07:19:03-0400

grumpy grizzly said:
I thought the 1955 units were 25 ordered from FWD, the last wooden aerials purchased by FDNY?

I read about it many years ago however where escapes me.

3511 · 2025-06-08T09:35:25-0400

memorymaster said:
I read about it many years ago however where escapes me.

My uncle was the chauffeur of Ladder 37 when they received one of the 1955 FWD woodens brand new. Even before they had a hydraulic lift on the aerial. He told me when I was a kid that these were Chicago FD rejects. I never doubted ol' Uncle Charles. Maybe it was because they had open cabs that Chicago rejected them. Just guessing.

68jk09 · 2025-06-08T12:17:40-0400

124 also had a '55 FWD well into the '60s... ....always was said original order was for Chicago but they wound up in NYC.... always thought it was strange that after a few yrs of Metal Aerials in the FDNY ...'48 Pirsch & '53 ALF's the FDNY bought the '55 FWD's .with Wooden Aerials.....$$ ??

grumpy grizzly · 2025-06-08T12:58:41-0400

3511 said:
My uncle was the chauffeur of Ladder 37 when they received one of the 1955 FWD woodens brand new. Even before they had a hydraulic lift on the aerial. He told me when I was a kid that these were Chicago FD rejects. I never doubted ol' Uncle Charles. Maybe it was because they had open cabs that Chicago rejected them. Just guessing.

Let me check with my CFD peeps.

68jk09 · 2025-06-08T20:51:11-0400

I checked in with my longtime Friend Jim R. a longtime Chicago FD History expert explaining that going back to the '60s i had always heard that the FDNY's 1955 75' FWD's had been a cancelled order from Chicago FD..... He was sure that they were ordered by the FDNY directly from FWD & there was no Chicago involvement....i guess sometime way back when somebody started it...i know i believed it thru the yrs but now i will chalk it up to Urban Legend.

3511 · 2025-06-08T23:27:11-0400

68jk09 said:
124 also had a '55 FWD well into the '60s... ....always was said original order was for Chicago but they wound up in NYC.... always thought it was strange that after a few yrs of Metal Aerials in the FDNY ...'48 Pirsch & '53 ALF's the FDNY bought the '55 FWD's .with Wooden Aerials.....$$ ??

$$ was what I was told also. The city was too cheap to continue with metal aerials and had a fast buy for the Chicago rejects.
There were also stories that the metal ladders heated up making them dangerous for the firefighters and that one metal aerial in Brooklyn had been used to prop up a wall and wound up getting bent. I heard these stories among my firefighter family but cannot contest to their truth. It's just what I was told by the guys who were OTJ at the time.