1894 SILSBY Horse-Drawn Steam Fire Engine – RM Auctions Amelia Island 2016 Highlights
Motorized, steam fire engines were some of the highest-tech wagons on the roads between 1850 and the dawn of the motorcar 50 years later. The need for mechanized, high-volume water pumps to extinguish urban and industrial accidents was what drove such huge innovation at the time. These high-tech water wagons didn’t know at the time that their steam-engine solutions would spur internal combustion. For this machine, the steam boiler drove a turbine, which then drove a water pump. Hoses attached to the input would pull water through the system and out the main fire-fighting nozzles and ladders at high pressure and volume. …