A sturdy old 1954 fire engine that outlasted many a newer vehicle was finally taken out of service this year by Mid-Columbia Fire & Rescue and donated to a fire museum.
The last local appearance of Engine 3, which was the oldest serving Crown “Firecoach” in the country, experts said, was in the 2015 Cherry Festival Parade in April. It had been in service for 61 years.
Most of its use in recent years had been in such parades.
The Crown Coach Corporation, in Los Angeles, manufactured fire engines from 1951 to 1985. Engine 3 was the first of the company’s trucks to be sold in Oregon, and only the second sold outside of California, said MCFR Lt./Paramedic Joel Brown.
Brown helped shepherd the donation of the engine to the soon -to-be-built Oregon Fire Service Museum outside of Salem.
It will join several other museums on a site called Antique Powerland in Brooks.
The MCFR board voted in April to make the donation, after the state fire museum asked that it be donated.
Brown said he was surprised that the state fire museum wanted Engine 3, since they have a backlog of other apparatus around the state awaiting transport to the museum. “But Engine 3 is very special in their world. It’s history is special when it comes to Crowns and its history is special when it comes to Oregon fire equipment.”
Bill Hall, of the fire museum, said, “We, the Oregon Fire Museum want to show a piece of equipment that served one department for 60 years.
Between the way new trucks are built and the federal and insurance standards for fire departments now, I don’t expect to see anything serving even a second or third owner 60 years down the line.”
MCFR Chief Bob Palmer said, “We were very pleased that the Oregon Fire Service Museum was able to incorporate E-3 into their inventory of antique and classical fire apparatus for display. She’s a good old girl.”
Brown said, “It was a well-made, well-constructed well taken care of little pumper that just kept doing what you asked it to do.”
It was targeted for replacement years ago, but “other pieces of equipment around it would break down and end up going out of service, so Engine 3 never really got its turn,” Brown said.
When the fire district got a new engine from San Diego a few years ago it was time to figure out what to do with the aging engine. Choices were scrap it, sell it or donate it.
A collector might’ve paid up to $10,000 for it, but Brown lauded the fire board for choosing to donate instead.
Brown said Hall, of the state fire museum, “has been, well, stalking Engine 3 for a long time.”
Indeed, Hall knows Engine 3’s history well, saying it was repowered with a diesel engine in 1974 and had a fiberglass enclosed cab installed as well. (It originally came without an enclosed cab.)
Crown products were heavily used up and down the West Coast, but especially in California.
Close viewers of classic TV shows like “Emergency!” would recognize Engine 51 in that show as being nearly identical to Engine 3.
The Dalles Fire Department bought the engine new in 1954 for around $60,000, Brown said.
He said the community has more than gotten a return on its investment.
Engine 3 was a double clutch — requiring pushing the clutch to pull it out of gear and pushing it again to put it in gear, all while making sure the tachometer was at just the right range, Brown said.
“There’s an art and a talent to double clutching,” Brown said.
“It took a special breed of individuals to drive a double clutch and I’ve got an immense amount of respect for those guys and double clutch and I never really got along.”
The better drivers were the older guys, all now retired, like Mark Roth, Larry Renard, and Larry Lange, Brown said.
Renard had the privilege of driving Engine 3 to its new home in Brooks, he said.
Brown said the design of fire3 engines has changed.
“When you look at Engine 3, you immediately recognize it as the fire engine you’ve seen in every single kids’ book. They look just like that Crown.”
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