London Fire Brigade-AEC TLs Croydon & Kensington 1987 

That first shot, the dennis and 2 tones, a truly british combination

Dad was at Willesden and West Hampstead most of the time but this brings back memories! Went on to be an instructor. Used to pick us up from school in an F106. Miss you dad x

Miss the two tones

Best looking TLs ever made, especially the sliding door type, it's also good to know many survive in preservation.

I prefer the old two tone air horn sirens.

Im sorry im am American but is there any apparatus more beautiful than the AEC MKV. It is an absolute work of art in engineering.

The best thing.... real sirens.👍🏻

Way better than alot of the new shite of today

10:17 beautiful two tones

You are an angel for filming this unexpected juxtaposition of classic trucks still operating in a more modern era of London, even though Routemasters were essentially doing the same thing for buses en masse. Those Dennises had more than a hint of the 1960s ergonomic cab design cues and they looked smart for it! Sydney City Council was still operating a fleet of yellow ergo cabbed Albion street washers in 1988 until they were replaced with Volvos. I spotted a repainted one with a subsequent buyer being used on a construction sight in the 1990s. A while after that I saw a Lad cabbed Leyland truck with vertical 0680 engine in a road works sight driven by an Italian looking bloke and it had "classic not plastic" written in it lol.

I've said it on another video I remember back in the 1960's going with my grandmother to Greenwich fire station and watching the AEC Merryweather turn table turning out it was a great sight

I remember being in the brigade in 1987 no health and safety and some shocking rtas....quite a few blokes got leukaemia because when we started the appliance we breathed in the diesel fumes...happy days

That looked like a brand new Dennis out for a driver familiarisation trip... The lovely growl of that engine too

AEC and Dennis with Perkins V8 sounds! Great combination of British engineering. It’s quite sad British fire brigade was occupied by Mercedes. Greeting from Taiwan 🇹🇼

The first siren reminds me of fireman Sam

Amazing that such antiquated looking vehicles were still in service in 1987.

In my opinion, the old British two-tone sirens were much more easy to pick out in terms of direction they were coming in heavy and noisy traffic than the American style ones used now. The deeper pitch is more penetrating in terms of sound.

Miss those old LFB appliances.

How fast 36 years goes by for them old fire engines

Fantastic video good clarity considering the age👌. Two tones all the way =p

That Perkins growl on the SS is music to my ears...

Great sound 2 two tones together

Takes me back to when I was driving ing to an RTA once and the Guvnor put on both sets of 2 tones at the same time, Dorset bedfords had a back up set. It was bloody deafening, but great at the same time.

I love the old TL’s. I often saw Whitechapel’s out and about. 😊

I first saw the Croydon ladder truck in London's Burning, and really like it.

I remember the AEC TL at H31 Croydon, use to see it regularly on the streets in the 1970's. Croydon. They then had a Shelvoke HP, and then a Dennis HP, which was transferred to Norbury before being withdrawn.

There was an AEC TL with sliding doors at Redcar fire station, just like the the Kensington example, until it was replaced by a Dennis DF TL in the early 1980s. My father was the last Cleveland Fire Brigade man to drive the AEC and the first to drive the Dennis as he took the AEC down to Dennis to have the ladder moved across to the new Dennis. The Dennis was later to start in the fire safety postcards that Cleveland Fire Brigade produced. By the time this was film my father had joined LFB. He was filmed talking to Mrs Tatcher the day after King's Cross (he was on the first of 2 days on the day of the disaster and travelled through King's Cross on his way home before the fire was discivered).

1987 and London still had what looked like 1960s appliances on the road. 🤔

Oh brilliant I never knew Kensington had a TL. Nice to see the other bays at Kensington in use. Also, love the Dennises (? and SS?).

Love it

Old days, that TL is getting on a bit, even for 1987.

A great video, full of interest.

these old British apparatuses fascinate me to no end, love the Dennis SS at 1:41

Proper machines

Gif that’s Croydon my grand mother lived in the flat just down the road from there she moved on 1988 to Hastings

Even back then congested city streets held them up, the appliances may have changed but that's one thing that hasn't... busy London streets.

Brilliant

I am impressed that London fire brigade can use one ladder truck over 20 years. In the capital of Taiwan, taipei city, the longest using life of ladder trucks is 18 years.

very nice ladder

Compared to these sirens the present day ones sound like toys.

+13:51 Nice kerb clipping!

That first Dennis - would I be correct in thinking that it once carried an escape, which was replaced with the metal ladder we see in the shot of it turning out?

My mother mother lived near the Croydon fire station

Nobody: London Firetrucks: DENNIS

6:35, 8:20, 10:15 It’s quite a shame that the UK apparently phased out the two-tone air horn siren.

That is old. I was 7 in this era and where I lived it was up north we only had the newer Dennis.

They didnt have the stabilisation legs did they, only the jacks?

were they based on the RT bus running gear?

See good mate Hove a good day mate good one

Wait... was this actually recorded in 1987?

Yikes an invacar!

🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

Now at the cheap crap they use now.

how do these exist in the 80s there ancient