John Connelly recently purchased a Boley ladder truck. The story, as John tells us, in his own word: "I noticed that the truck would not fit into existing 1/87th scale fire stations. I have not kitbashed for years but pulled out the old tools and started to work on this truck. I still have more work to do. I have only given the roof a flat coat of black, the finish work around the roll up doors on each side and the rear body need to be completed. The door decals, etc, I am still working on. I had to lower the bed that the "stick" (aerial) was mounted on and found that I would have to modify the rail sides of the rear body for the ladder turn table to fit properly. I added a control box on the turn table to operate the stick. I will add some incidentals (deck gun, stokes basket stretcher, etc.) to finish it. When I am done I will submit photos of the final truck. I am now really looking forward into working on some other apparatus. I was involved in the fire service for over thirty years. When I had the 1/87th railroad layout at my old house, my brother would joke with me about having a fire station place every two city blocks on the layout."

Posted October 5, 2003