In the summer of 1869 the city of Wooster, Ohio purchased a steam fire pumper from the Allerton Iron Works of Naugatuck, Connecticut. The pumper did not carry water. Instead, it used a coal-fired boiler to draw water from wells and cisterns and pumped 350 gallons per minute.

The fire department s horses were replaced with motor vehicles in 1919, but the horse-drawn Allerton remained at the station as a back-up pumper until the mid-1930s. By the 1950s the steamer was taken out of service and put into storage. Practically forgotten, it was eventually sold to a scrap dealer who then sold it to Charles Panella, a fire apparatus collector near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Panella s son wanted to see the old steam pumper returned to its original home and sold it to the Wayne County Ohio Historical Society.  On March 30, 2001, the 1869 Allerton steamer was delivered to the Wooster Fire Department for cleaning and preparation. Now on exhibit at the Wayne County Historical Society it is the only known Allerton steamer in existence.

 

The Allerton is the most complex and accurately detailed kit Model Trailways has ever produced. Hundreds of cleanly cast Britannia metal pieces weigh in at nearly six pounds to duplicate every component of the original pumper. We provide a photo-etched brass sheet for spark arrestor and coal buckets, plus photo-etched stainless steel for boiler walls and nameplate. Ready-to-use wheel hubs are machined aluminum. Kit also includes flexible hoses, brass wire and rod, split rings, and clear plastic pieces for the headlight and hand lamps. Wooden parts are replicated in fine-grained laser cut basswood. Five sheets of plans with blueprint quality drawings show every detail with left and right side views, exploded perspectives, wheel assembly pattern and color guide. Sixty-four page illustrated instruction manual explains every step of construction from start to finish.