The combined shriek of a siren and roar of a 525-horsepower Detroit Diesel engine beat the eardrums of passersby as the cab of Charlottesville Fire Department’s Truck 9 turns onto West Main Street, followed 64.8 feet later by the truck’s backseat driver.
The idea of driving the east end of a fire truck heading west has fascinated small children and adults since the first articulated horse-drawn ladder trucks of the 1900s.
The iconic piece of American fire equipment, called a tiller truck, has been featured in toys, movies, television shows and cartoons. In 1935, Goofy took up the back end of the truck driven by Mickey Mouse in Walt Disney’s “Mickey’s Fire Brigade.”