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This Dodge WM-300 (1-Ton) Power Wagon, originally owned by the Boston, Metropolitan Transit Authority (BMTA). With multiple banks of 24-Volt batteries staged in the box and a front mounted wooden ‘push-bumper’, the truck functioned as an auxiliary Battery / Starting vehicle for diesel and gasoline transit buses on cold winter mornings.Declared surplus and sold by the BMTA, it served the second owner as a ‘go-anywhere’ truck, cutting and transporting firewood in the Massachusetts and Connecticut woods during cold northeastern winters.
With the truck bed covered by lead-acid batteries, both wood and metal parts of the bed were severely damaged through weather and battery acid exposure. Fortunately, an old Forest Ranger friend, located a Power-Wagon suitable for a ‘Parts Truck’ at an abandoned Logging Camp in Northern California, thus providing the basis of a new truck bed as well as the mechanical winch parts.
Complementing the truck restoration is a 1960's era, Self-Contained 200-Gallon, Western Fire Equipment, fiberglass Slide-In, Class III, fire-fighting unit with a modernized Berkeley, Centrifugal Pump powered by an 8 Hp Kohler Engine. Included with the pump unit are period era hand fire-fighting tools and equipment, 1960’s era Heavy-Duty “McCulloch” Chain Saw, emergency lights and dedicated frequency, State Park radio communication equipment.
The truck was cosmetically restored by the owner’s husband, to its present condition, as a tribute to his Ranger / Historian wife who retired from the California State Park System in 2001.
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