The Mack Super Pumper was a locomotive engined fire fighter (2018)
64 comments
·November 3, 2025linsomniac
dreamcompiler
Our engine holds 1200 gallons. It goes in first* and starts putting the wet stuff on the red stuff.
As the engine drives in it drops a 3" hose along its path. Next is our big tender with 3000 gallons. It stops at the street and connects to the dropped hose to pump more water up to the engine.
The tender also has a drop tank -- think about a portable kids' wading pool but much larger and deeper. Shuttle tenders refill the drop tank while our big tender draws from it to continue supplying the engine.
We don't have fire hydrants, so this is the dance we have to do.
* It's very important to park the engine close to the fire but not too close. Ask me how I learned this.
mindcrime
And while we're talking about highly specialized firefighting apparatus... while I don't think Chicago FD ever ran anything quite like the FDNY Mack Super Pumper, they are well known for their use of a piece of apparatus known as a "turret wagon". Basically, it's a big-ass truck with a huge deluge gun (aka "monitor" or "turret") mounted on the back, and with a big intake manifold for receiving multiple supply lines. You could think of a "turret wagon" as being conceptually akin to the "Satellite" units that were part of the FDNY Super Pumper System.
Anyway, one of the best known Chicago Turret Wagons was "Big John" (aka 6-7-3).
https://chicagoareafire.com/blog/2013/04/chicago-fd-turret-w...
https://chicagoareafire.com/blog/2013/04/chicago-fd-turret-w...
Not sure if CFD still maintain any Turret Wagons in contemporary times or not, but variations on the concept are still found, particularly in industrial fire departments that protect high hazard sites like oil refineries, certain chemical plants, etc.
bitwize
Wow. Those things could Dip Toontown off the face of the earth.
jedberg
My dad worked on the Space Shuttle main engine program in the 80s. One of the things they built was the turbopump [0], which generated 23,000HP (and could drain your average home swimming pool in one minute).
Seeing the test firings of the pump was pretty amazing, draining one "swimming pool" and filling another in a minute.
interroboink
To say nothing of the launchpad sound suppression water system[1] that dumps 7,300 gal/sec (about 2–3 seconds for one swimming pool)!
Though that's just gravity-fed, of course. Still pretty cool though, I think (:
jauntywundrkind
The article uses various measures, so here's a quick table:
Baikonur Cosmodrome: 4,800 gal/s (peak)
Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39: 7,317 gal/s (net)
Wallops: 4,000 gal/s (?)
SLS: 18,333 gal/s (peak)
Mack Super Pumper (this article): 146 gal/s (net)
Replacement new Super Pumper 1: 87.5 gal/s (net)giobox
That "deltic" engine just for the water pumping is incredible, I'd never seen that cylinder layout before.
ggm
The type 55 "deltic" locomotives, named after army regiments used to do the east coast Edinburgh-London train run, there were 22 of them in service and one in the science museum London. They had the first 100mph rating for diesel passenger service.
The engine had a unique characteristic whine or whistle. As an avid train spotter at Waverley station in edinburgh I loved hearing it, saw every one and was in the cab of two thanks to long suffering kind engine drivers.
There was a mini deltic too. I'm not sure it went beyond a testbed loco.
jacquesm
Those are amazing engines. It's a pity that in the future we'll just be using magnets and coils, there something about these designs that moves me in a way that nothing electrical ever will. And I'm a great fan of renewable energy, and realize that the pollution that has been created (and is still being created) is absolutely unsustainable.
jcgrillo
There are people working on internal combustion engines with a very similar design currently, for many applications (military, trucking, etc) diesel or diesel electric is the only realistic option for the foreseeable future: https://achatespower.com/
hydrogen7800
Piston engines got pretty wild before turbines eventually took over the world. The most efficient ones were more efficient than today's turbines in terms of BSFC[0]. One of the most interesting to me was the Napier Nomad[1], which used turbo- and super-charging. However, the turbo had secondary fuel injection and effectively ran as a turbine to drive the compressor.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumptio... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Nomad
mikkupikku
Those exhaust driven turbines didn't just drive the compressor like is typical with turbochargers, but was also mechanically linked to the crank shaft so the turbine contributed to the overall power output of the engine directly, not just by forcing more air into the cylinders. That's what made them "turbo-compound."
The youtube channel "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles" has a nice video about turbo compound engines.
shawn_w
Speaking of turbines and fire apparatus, back in the 60's a few jet turbine powered engines and one ladder truck were made: https://www.aeroflap.com.br/en/when-fire-trucks-used-boeing-...
jabl
Napier Nomad is one of my favorite engine designs. More info at https://oldmachinepress.com/2019/08/05/napier-nomad-compound...
noir_lord
Napier was on the cutting edge of certain kinds of IC engines for a long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Sabre (1938).
Powered the absolute monster that was the Tempest (up to the Mk 2 - they did have reliability issues they never quite solved but 3000+HP out of an engine that weighs barely more than a tonne dry will do that)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Tempest
Was happy to see the name re-used for our upcoming fighter.
We also called the Eurofighter the Typhoon and the (WW2) Typhoon (also a Sabre engine) was the predecessor of the Tempest - it started as a re-wing of the Typhoon but enough changes where made to give it a new name.
Just a devastating superprop in its day.
mrlonglong
They're unique. Originally designed to power fast torpedo boats during WW2, three of these powerful and compact engines would churn out plenty of power for the boat up to 50 kt.
mrlonglong
They're still in use by our UK navy. Nine minesweepers still on active duty.
mrlonglong
I just realised they re-engined them with cat engines in 2008. Pity.
whycome
> The Napier Deltic engine is a British opposed-piston valveless, supercharged uniflow scavenged, two-stroke diesel engine
Any tech that includes the word “scavenged” must be cool and efficient
mikkupikku
Scavenging here means getting the exhaust from the previous cycle out of the cylinder and replacing it with fresh air. Technically all internal combustion engines do it one way or another, but usually you hear the word in relation to two stroke engines. Two strokes don't have discrete "suck" and "blow" steps so those need to be done at the same time. With two stroke diesels, that was done using blowers to basically force out the exhaust by blowing in fresh air.
Generally speaking at least, two stroke diesel engines weren't super efficient, but did offer great power output relative to their size.
7402
Anyone else struck by this bit?
Mack was awarded the contract to build the truck in 1964 and by the end of the year, the unit was nearly ready to hit the streets of NYC.
Seems amazingly fast by current standards. Those were the days!
potato3732842
Think about all the processes they just didn't have to do back then.
garbagewoman
just less massive amounts of waste, fraud and corruption
citizenkeen
Something the article doesn’t mention is why this was phased out. Was it replaced with something similar?
mindcrime
FDNY reintroduced the "Super Pumper" concept in a somewhat different form a few years ago.
See:
https://www.firefighternation.com/lifestyle/new-fdny-super-p...
michaelt
The article says the "super pumper" could supply 8,800 gallons per minute, and it came with three "satellite trucks [...] not burdened with a pump of their own"
Your basic modern fire pump unit can pump 2,200 gallons per minute (if you can find a water source that'll give you that much) and it'd typically have a crew of 4-5 firefighters on board.
So you'd probably replace it with 4 regular fire trucks? Then you've got just as much pump capacity, plus you've got the flexibility to send the trucks to different places.
mindcrime
(if you can find a water source that'll give you that much)
Note that, for what it's worth, fire pumps are generally rated for their capacity when drafting from a static water supply (think, pond, lake, river, etc). Basically all modern fire pumps can easily exceed their rated capacity by a pretty good margin when pumping from a pressurized source, but then you're back to your point of "do you have a source that can supply that?" Still, there are ways. In my firefighting days we had some hydrants in our district (the ones on the big 30" main that ran right down the middle of the county in particular) that could individually supply 2000gpm. And nothing says you are restricted to using one hydrant! There are also all sorts of complex water supply evolutions one can run, involving relay pumping with multiple engines, drafting and using hydrants, etc.
michaelt
In the UK a large-scale fire will often be attended by far more fire engines than the local water network can supply.
At the major Grenfell Tower fire, the water network could only supply ~4,320 litres per minute (1141 us gallons per minute) [1] despite firefighters asking the water suppliers to maximise the water supply.
And that fire was attended by seventy fire engines and two hundred and fifty firefighters, as they needed pretty much all the breathing apparatus in the city. So they had substantially more pump capacity than they had water available.
[1] https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/lfb-did-not-follow-even...
dublinben
Some interesting history here: https://www.firerescue1.com/firefighting-history/articles/th...
plasticsoprano
Better building fire suppression systems. Not to mention improvements to flame retardant materials.
MisterTea
Ah, the Mack Super pumper. Shame Mack started to struggle in the 60s until the 80s and got out of the fire truck business. They had some very interesting designs in terms of cab design and components. I always loved the F model cab-over which were produced until the early 80s which is what the CF fire truck was built on.
kazinator
That https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic is pretty interesting.
You would initially think that the ignition events would be evenly spaced, but that's not the case. For every delta triplet, the ignitions come rapidly one after another, close together in the cycle.
In that second animation on the page, showing the firing order among 6 delta piston assemblies, if you keep your eyes fixated on any of the six columns, you can see the three firing events. Always C, B, A order.
joemi
> During a fire in the Bronx, firemen laid 7,000ft of hose to get to a suitable water supply and the truck pumped as though it was dipping its feet into the ocean.
"7000 ft" sounds wrong to me. That's over a mile of hose. Feels like that's unnecessarily long. I'd love to learn more about this. Anyone know when or what fire this was?
dleary
The article mentions that the main pumping unit could draw water from 8 hydrants at once. So 7000 ft of total hose to get to 8 hydrants sounds like it makes sense.
I wonder if maybe it can't even use hydrants that are too near each other in the plumbing graph.
dreamcompiler
If they were all in a single line it probably wouldn't have worked -- series hydrodynamic hose impedance adds just like series resistance in a circuit and the pressure at the end would have been too low to be useful. But if it was 7000 feet arranged in several shorter parallel lines it's possible.
maxerickson
It could draw from 8 hydrants. So average of 900 feet in that case.
Which still seems like a lot, but not so incredible.
mtmail
How do you extinguish an oil-well fire? Enter the "Big Wind" with two jet engines on a tank chassis. "The water is moving at a maximum rate of 220 gallons of water a second," https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15138374/stilling-the...
dewey
Tangentially related and recommended. Werner Herzog's film that also features longer sections on the fire fighting efforts on the oil fields.
echelon_musk
For lighter viewing there is Sorcerer (1977) [0] with Roy Scheider.
mikkupikku
Not sure I'd call that lighter viewing, but it's a truly excellent movie.
dreamcompiler
Great Tangerine Dream soundtrack too.
nchmy
Someone just recommended this to me the other day!
I must also recommend the recently-deceased legend Sebastiao Salgado's photos from Kuwait oil fires.
slybot
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3674140/
I watched this movie on cinema a decade ago. Highly recommended.
mtmail
Video is hosted on archive.org https://archive.org/details/lessons-of-darkness-1992
hakoda
You could also nuke it; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtabulak_gas_field
jabl
In case someone is interested in the engine powering this thing, a good writeup at https://oldmachinepress.com/2019/09/05/napier-deltic-opposed...
tonetegeatinst
I have a question for folks who handle pumps regularly. Almost all pumps are made for water, or sewage. How do you identify if a pump is rated to handle liquid metal or hot fluids (heated chemicals, or contents under extreme pressure)
I have never heard of a standard class of pumps for this....other than basically finding a manufacturer who specialized in these sort of pumps.
mindcrime
That's a bit outside my wheelhouse, but in regards to firefighting specifically there is another such distinction that comes up, and that is in regards to pumps that are designed to regularly pump seawater, versus pumps that primarily pump freshwater. The difference is mainly in the materials used for building the pump, and relate to the corrosive effects of seawater. You can pump seawater with a "normal" fire pump, but if you do it's imperative to flush the pump (and other hose and appliances) thoroughly with freshwater as soon as possible to avoid damage. The seawater rated pumps, on the other hand, can handle seawater all the time. As you can probably guess, the primary application of seawater rated pumps is for fireboats or onboard firefighting on other sorts of ships.
estimator7292
Those are pretty extreme applications that require extremely specific pumps. You are very firmly in the "call for pricing" territory
korse
You're thinking of temperature and viscosity parameters.
Read the data sheets and look for those terms, or look for manufacturers of pumps that maximize both.
SysAdmin related: I was once talking to a fire chief and I asked about how much water the fire engines carried. He said that they carry about enough to put out the typical house fire. The first engine on scene immediately jumps to fighting the fire. The second engine on scene hooks the first engine up to the water supply before going on to fight the fire.
I've often thought about that when there's a work crisis: If I'm the second on the scene, what can I do to support those fighting the fire right now, before jumping in.