2 October 2017 - FIRETRUCK GRAVEYARD IN FRANCE

FIRETRUCK GRAVEYARD

 IN FRANCE

G'day folks,

 What little boy didn’t dream of driving a big red firetruck? Today’s find from the world of urban abandonment feels particularly tragic– and a little bit like uncovering the tomb of childhood dreams. Not to be a downer or anything.

This Aladdin’s cave of rare automobiles is likely one of several. In the 1990s, the French fire departments raised funds in an effort to restore and preserve their retired old trucks to be sent off to museums but in the early 2000s, that initiative ran out of money and went bust. The trucks that weren’t in good enough condition were sentences to the scrapyard rather than being sold to the public, and the rest were sent to storage sites like this in the event that maybe, on the off chance, one day a museum might come along and save them.

The good news is, exactly a year after Vincent took these photos, a firefighter museum opened up in Lyon, near the Swiss border in the East of France. The bad news is, fire departments across the whole of France were hoping to unload the burden of their old trucks and there’s only so many firetrucks that one museum can display. This particular warehouse is located somewhere near Le Havre, all the way across the country in the North of France.

Now, have a look at these treasures covered in dust.

Clancy's comment: Wow, what a waste. The quality of these would have to be far better than what is produced today.

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