They came to see the fire trucks, then stayed despite the rain
For a while at least at the Laval Firemen’s Festival outside Collège Montmorency on May 31, things were going quite smoothly at the outset.
People were arriving, acrobats were drawing enthusiastic oohs and aahs from a growing crowd, and the firefighters themselves were getting into the swing of what seemed like a promising day.
Then came the rain. Not a lot, mind you. But just enough to drive off at least a few of the hundreds of moms, dads and kids who arrived early to see firsthand several dozen firetrucks and other emergency vehicles on parade.
They ranged from vintage pumpers that had seen better days, to shining new high-tech and high-reach ladder trucks in service with fire departments all over the Montreal region.
The festival is a mainstay on the City of Laval’s annual calendar of family-oriented activities and traditionally marks the beginning of summer in Laval each year.
This year’s parade, which started in the east and wound its way along de la Concorde Blvd. before arriving at the college campus, appeared to draw a record number of fire departments as well as collectors of vintage fire vehicles – including two reps from an organization based in Watertown NY, about 50 kilometres south of Kingston ON.
Dave Hall and Tim Jones made the three-and-a-half-hour trip to Laval through Ontario along Highway 401 in a 1923 Ford Model T fire truck, notwithstanding the loud backfiring and foggy diesel fumes the vintage yet still reliable vehicle spewed out along the way.
Seems that Ford Model T’s weren’t conceived to travel at modern highway speeds. “It overheated from going so slow,” said Hall, a retired fireman with 50 years experience, who still serves with a volunteer firefighting service in his hometown.
They attend similar vintage fire truck gatherings all over the U.S. and Canada throughout the year. Some forthcoming events on their schedule are in Michigan as well as in Kansas.
This was their fourth time at the Laval Firemen’s Festival. However, according to Hall, the event in Laval is the biggest they go to anywhere in Canada or the USA.
Quebec-based Transport Robert, one of the continent’s largest providers of truck transportation logistics, sent along several vintage fire trucks that are part of a collection of heavy-duty vehicles started by former company president Claude Robert.
One of them, a yellow, late 1950s American-LaFrance pumper with an open canopy, was the sort of classic fire truck that set children of a certain generation to dreaming romantically of one day becoming firefighters themselves.
