By Bob Vaccaro
This is the second installment of a monthly series looking back on past fire truck manufacturers.
Past Fire Truck Manufacturers
While this is not a comprehensive history of the Walter Motor Truck Company, I thought I would share a bit about its storied past. Walter is unique in that it started as an automobile manufacturer by William Walter in New York City and then in Trenton, New Jersey in 1904. However, it was decided to close down in 1909. Walter decided that the large truck market offered more opportunities for his company and created the Walter Motor Truck Company in NYC. This new company created in 1911 would offer various models of trucks, from 1½-ton to 7-ton chassis, and 4×4 trucks for the logging, construction, and mining industries.
In 1923, the company would relocate to Long Island City, New York and started building trucks in the 25-ton capacity and then expanded into snow plows, which would become a major product for the company well into the future. During World War II, Walter built 4-wheel-drive artillery tractors and snow plows for the U.S. Army.
There were other moves, such as starting a Canadian division in 1932, and then becoming an independent company in 1957.
In 1957, Walter moved to a larger facility in Voorheesville, New York near Albany.
What about fire apparatus? I didn’t forget. In 1908, the company built a combination chemical hose apparatus on a large touring car chassis for Enterprise Fire Company in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. After that the Walter Motor Truck Company started building fire apparatus in 1929. They received a large order for building fleet tractors for the Fire Department of New York (FDNY). They were used to power former horse drawn aerials and water towers. From 1935-36, the FDNY also purchased a fleet of combination hose and turret trucks and a heavy duty wrecker as well. It was believed the first and only Walter rigid aerial was built for Newburg, New York.
The first Walter crash vehicles, now known as Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) trucks, were built in 1944. In 1949, Walter joined Maxim Motors in Massachusetts to build several crash trucks for the New York Port Authority. Those vehicles caught on and many other airports around the country followed.
In the 1950s, The Yankee Motor Body Company joined Walter to form a partnership with the creation of the Yankee-Walter Corporation to begin marketing crash trucks built by Yankee on Walter chassis. This lasted until 1972 when Yankee ceased operations.
Walter then began building its own crash vehicles on its own chassis with its own bodies in 1959. There were numerous bodies and configurations such as the CB3000, CB4500, B1500, MB1, RFN BDG1500, BDGL and a few others. Options were numerous at these times, with different pump, water foam and dry chemical gallons and pounds. They also manufactured smaller rapid intervention vehicles for some airports around the country as well.
In 1980, after being in business for over seven decades, Walter filed for bankruptcy. KME Fire Apparatus purchased the assets of the company in 1997. The last known factory was in Guilderland, New York.
In 1985, the former owners of Walter Canada formed a new company called Waltek Motor Trucks and built military and civil CFR’s on Walter chassis until 2003 when that company went out of business.
As you can see Walter had a great history. I’ve only mentioned some of the vehicles they built for fire departments and airports around the U.S. and Canada.
For more information, there are several great books on the Walter history out there, including Walter 100% Traction Volume 1 and Walter Classic Retrospective Volume 2 written by Mark Simiele (both published by a company called Contemporary Color).
BOB VACCARO has more than 40 years of fire service experience. He is a former chief of the Deer Park (NY) Fire Department. Vaccaro has also worked for the Insurance Services Office, the New York Fire Patrol, and several major commercial insurance companies as a senior loss-control consultant. He is a life member of the IAFC.
