VOLUME  1  –  ISSUE  1

       The Charter Issue was put out in the first quarter of 1999 and was 24 pages.  The front cover featured a tanker that I sold to the Central Berks Fire Company in Centerport (Berks County).  It originally was a 1986 KME tractor for a tiller in the City of Reading, running as Ladder 3. I remember Doug Callan from Cove Creek Fire Trucks in Tennessee coming up to get the tractor in 1997.  We dropped the trailer off at a towing place, which scrapped it.  The tractor was hauled down to Tennessee where it had a new 1800 gallon tank placed onto the chassis.  Well, I knew that Centerport was looking for a replacement tanker, and this fit the bill.  It was hauled back up here and placed into service.  It was not the prettiest thing, but it got the job done at an economical price.  When Central Berks received their new tanker, this unit was sold to an excavation company in the local area.

Some of the other articles in this issue were:

A list of fire companies per county plus its square mileage for 1999.

A fire department profile on New Ringgold Fire Company (Schuylkill County).

The Anthracite Apparatus Corner by Dan Markiewicz  (Updates on the Coal Region).

Nittany Valley Update by Pat Shoop & Myself (Updates on the Central PA Area).

A fire department profile on the Vinemont Fire Company ( Berks County).

Suburban Philadelphia Update by Bruce Anderson  (Updates on a 6-County Region).

York County Update by Bart Sharp and Myself.

Indiana County Update by Myself.

A fire department profile on the Catawissa Hose Company  (Columbia County).

A fire department profile on Lebanon Bureau of Fire – Part 1 by Darin Smith.

A Piece of the Big Apple (Profiling Pennsylvania apparatus previously from FDNY).

Lost and Found (One of my favorite columns, Highlighting Pennsylvania apparatus now in service elsewhere.  There have been many people helping with this column.)

Tractor-Trailer Tankers – Part 1  (My favorite apparatus, unfortunately becoming extinct).

Missing in Action  (A list of Pennsylvania apparatus that have been sold/scrapped and am looking for the whereabouts of them).

Calendar of Events

New Deliveries

Happy Anniversary (Fire Company Anniversaries from across  the state.