Emergency Services Trains

[McColm]

 I thought that this subject Emergency Services Trains was a whiff until I Googled each one individually.
 Yes there has been ambulance trains, carriages fitted with stretchers used during the Great War. Bachman has a World War I 00 gauge train pack  but hasn't bothered detailing the interior carriages with stretchers.
 There are Prison trains,  which are used to transport prisoners. The carriages converted into individual cells,  I haven't been able to find a collectors train set but there's several children's based train sets available.  Even a few locomotives painted to promote the Police service.
 Then there's Fire fighter trains,  either to suppress a fire in a tunnel or trackside. Again geared towards children when it comes to train sets   even Thomas the Tank engine and friends getting in on the act.
 With plenty of rolling stock in 00 gauge and helicopters small enough to fit on a flatbed wagon,  all that is stopping you is your imagination.

[tigercat]

 

https://youtu.be/Egk7s-Qo6Zk

[scooter]

I thought that this subject Emergency Services Trains was a whiff until I Googled each one individually.
 Yes there has been ambulance trains, carriages fitted with stretchers used during the Great War. Bachman has a World War I 00 gauge train pack  but hasn't bothered detailing the interior carriages with stretchers.
 There are Prison trains,  which are used to transport prisoners. The carriages converted into individual cells,  I haven't been able to find a collectors train set but there's several children's based train sets available.  Even a few locomotives painted to promote the Police service.
 Then there's Fire fighter trains,  either to suppress a fire in a tunnel or trackside. Again geared towards children when it comes to train sets   even Thomas the Tank engine and friends getting in on the act.
 With plenty of rolling stock in 00 gauge and helicopters small enough to fit on a flatbed wagon,  all that is stopping you is your imagination.

I had the same idea about 20-odd years ago, in HO scale. 

And, as a former EMT (both volunteer and paid), EMS is the redheaded stepchild of public services.  To paraphrase the late Rodney Dangerfield "We don't get no respect".

[Nick]

This has reminded me of the prison trains used in East Germany. One car has survived in a museum there. It was actually a set of specially converted carriages that were attached to regular services as needed and sent on a specific route.
The 18 cells held 4 prisoners on wooden seats in a 1m x 1.3m space. 72 prisoners took up one half of the car while the 5 guards had bunks in cabins, an office and a kitchen in the other half.

It could take days to deliver the prisoners just 150 miles including time stuck in sidings, but nobody really cared. "Socialism with a human face" 
*****************

On a happier note:

Red Cross trains. Ready to use rolling hospitals for immediate rail delivery to emergency sites across the country. Landslides, floods, forest fires.

Trans-Siberian Railroad Firefighters. Protecting the railways and natural resources of the Motherland! Tanks of fire retardant foam, pumps to get water from rivers and lakes, high pressure water cannons to put the flames out.

Police  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UexudZ4aOUk
https://www.class37.co.uk/imagepage.aspx?strnumber=ma37093&cf=gall

[PR19_Kit]

Hornby did that Class 37 in the 'Police' scheme in 00 for a while. It even had the blue light on the roof!

[Mossie]

Not really fire fighting trains as such, but I believe steam trains in rural areas carried buckets and pumps as embers could set fire to the undergrowth in summer.

[NARSES2]

Not really fire fighting trains as such, but I believe steam trains in rural areas carried buckets and pumps as embers could set fire to the undergrowth in summer.

Lots of line side fires back in the day were caused by exactly that. Even now you get them on Sothern Region occasionally because of sparking from the third rail.

[Mossie]

Lots of line side fires back in the day were caused by exactly that. Even now you get them on Sothern Region occasionally because of sparking from the third rail.

I was on the North York Moors Railways about ten years ago and we had to go slow and keep stopping because they'd caused a small moor fire to a few weeks earlier.

[Nick]

Lots of line side fires back in the day were caused by exactly that. Even now you get them on Sothern Region occasionally because of sparking from the third rail.

I was on the North York Moors Railways about ten years ago and we had to go slow and keep stopping because they'd caused a small moor fire to a few weeks earlier.

I have a photo taken on La'al Ratty, the narrow gauge line in the Lakes, of a hillside that had been burnt up. Driver said they'd dropped a spark the previous week and came back the other way to see flames.

[Rheged]

Lots of line side fires back in the day were caused by exactly that. Even now you get them on Sothern Region occasionally because of sparking from the third rail.

I was on the North York Moors Railways about ten years ago and we had to go slow and keep stopping because they'd caused a small moor fire to a few weeks earlier.

I have a photo taken on La'al Ratty, the narrow gauge line in the Lakes, of a hillside that had been burnt up. Driver said they'd dropped a spark the previous week and came back the other way to see flames.

R&ER have a couple of flat cars with water tanks and pumps/hoses that can be used as a firefighting train

[PR19_Kit]

While doing some testing on BR's Test Track aboard POP Train in the early 70s, they radio'd us from the Control Centre and asked if we could stop at Widmerpool Station (then closed and converted to a restaurant...) to pick up one of their chef's who'd SERIOUSLY chopped his finger. So we did and galloped him off south direct to Melton Mowbray Station where he was picked up by an ambulance. 

The restaurant manager had seen us go past a few times at some speed and realised we could get his chef some help faster than an ambulance could get there and back on the twisty roads in those parts. We were doing about 110 mph on the way south, a LOT quicker than an ambulance could have gone.

[scooter]

While doing some testing on BR's Test Track aboard POP Train in the early 70s, they radio'd us from the Control Centre and asked if we could stop at Widmerpool Station (then closed and converted to a restaurant...) to pick up one of their chef's who'd SERIOUSLY chopped his finger. So we did and galloped him off south direct to Melton Mowbray Station where he was picked up by an ambulance. 

The restaurant manager had seen us go past a few times at some speed and realised we could get his chef some help faster than an ambulance could get there and back on the twisty roads in those parts. We were doing about 110 mph on the way south, a LOT quicker than an ambulance could have gone.

There were times when I was working in Passaic County, and Paterson, that I wish we had ambulances equipped with hi-rails.  Especially since the one ambulance company I worked for had the intensive care transport contract for St Joseph's Children's Hospital, and there would be times we'd be required to jet up to Warwick NY with a team on board to transfer back to either St Joe's neonate or pediatric ICUs, and Susquehanna RR's main line runs *right* through Paterson.

[Rick Lowe]

While doing some testing on BR's Test Track aboard POP Train in the early 70s, they radio'd us from the Control Centre and asked if we could stop at Widmerpool Station (then closed and converted to a restaurant...) to pick up one of their chef's who'd SERIOUSLY chopped his finger. So we did and galloped him off south direct to Melton Mowbray Station where he was picked up by an ambulance. 

The restaurant manager had seen us go past a few times at some speed and realised we could get his chef some help faster than an ambulance could get there and back on the twisty roads in those parts. We were doing about 110 mph on the way south, a LOT quicker than an ambulance could have gone.

That's some awesome thinking out of the box, and using whatever you can to get the job done!

There were times when I was working in Passaic County, and Paterson, that I wish we had ambulances equipped with hi-rails.  Especially since the one ambulance company I worked for had the intensive care transport contract for St Joseph's Children's Hospital, and there would be times we'd be required to jet up to Warwick NY with a team on board to transfer back to either St Joe's neonate or pediatric ICUs, and Susquehanna RR's main line runs *right* through Paterson.

That would be quite a cool model.
As you say though, a shame it's never been done IRL.