This is the super pumper system from F.D.N.Y.s war years. From 1965 through the early 1980s, the Mack Super Pumper System responded to more than 2,200 calls with more than 900 firefighters serving to operate it in some capacity. The five trucks that made up the super pumper system were a massive, locomotive-engined central pumping truck, a tendertruck full of hoses, manifolds, and other gear, and three satellite trucks that looked like standard fire engines but were not equipped with their own pumps. It cost the city of New York $875,000 when it was new and we’ll wager to say that it was probably the best money ever spent to keep Gotham safe. There’s never been anything else like it.
Mack was awarded the contract to build the truck in 1964 and by the end of the year, the unit was nearly ready to hit the streets of NYC. The tractor employed to drag the pumping unit around was a F715FSTP cab over that used a 255hp Mack END864 engine. 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. There were custom built PTOs to power the priming pump for the water pump and to to run an air compressor that needed 450psi to light off the pump engine.
The custom built trailer housed the engine and all of the stuff needed to keep it alive like the cooling system, fuel tanks, etc. At the rear of the trailer was the enormous six stage pump which was built by a company called DeLaval and that’s where the real magic happened. When the big Deltic was put to work turning that bad boy, fire, at least any on the first 60 stories of a building, didn’t stand a chance. The whole rig weighed in at 68,000lbs and for as much reading and research as we have done, there are no accounts of it ever faltering, failing, or leaving firefighters without the resources they needed to battle a fire. Often times we read about awesome machines like this and discover that they were unreliable or prone to fail but not this big guy.
Some pretty stunning facts about the truck and the pumper:
At 8,800 GPM it was throwing nearly 70,000lbs of water on a fire per minute.
During a fire in the Bronx, firemen laid 7,000ft of hose to get to a suitable water supply and the truck pumped as though it was dipping its feet into the ocean.
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 (by several times!) 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 truck still exists, living at a museum in Michigan and standing as a great reminder that human beings are amazingly inventive and creative beings when forced to find solutions to problems that endanger lots of lives or lots of valuable property!
