A Life of Innovation: Ted Thornton Trump
Ted Thornton Trump came to the Yukon in 1938 as a young man full of vim, vigour and enthusiasm. His hard work that first year earned him some notice from Yukon Consolidated, a gold mining company in Dawson. When he returned a second season he was put to work in their engineering department. It was here that his creative abilities blossomed into a career of notable inventions.
One of his creations, while working for Yukon Consolidated, was the construction of a large workbench on which he mounted a series of gauges and meters. With this collection of rudimentary instrumentation, he was able to do all of the testing on their electric devices. This large ‘machine’ can be still seen on display in the Bear Creek Machine Shop.
Another one of his innovative ideas was born of necessity. While living in the bunkhouse, he grew tired of walking out in the cold temperatures to use the eight-seater outhouse and find it already occupied. In order to improve life, he designed a ‘semaphore system’ by attaching the seat lids to special arms, which were then mounted on top of the outhouse. He could simply look out the window to note whether the arms were up or down, thereby saving himself a trip if the place was busy.
His most universally known invention was the ‘cherry picker’, a bucket at the end of a hydraulically operating arm. He told the story of his being able to visualize an orchard worker in a bucket picking apples and pruning trees before actually setting down to design the system, which he called the Giraffe. The cherry picker is still widely used today in many industries, for example in the electrical business, movie industry and fire suppression.
His final triumph came after establishing Trump Industries. In a large factory in Alabama which employed 800 staff, he manufactured the equipment which was used to de-ice aircraft.
Upon his death, while in his seventies, Ted Thornton Trump left behind a legacy of creative innovations.
Fire Fighting Snorkels
We have all seen Snorkel fire trucks in operation either in person or on TV. But how many of you know the origin of the apparatus or the name? The Snorkel as a Fire apparatus has it's origins in Chicago in 1958. The Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn had been looking for something to replace the department's three antiquated water towers, which manufacturers were no longer making. Commissioner Quinn had watched in fascination, tree trimmers and electric-sign repairmen using trucks with two hydraulically operated elevating arms that lifted them in baskets high in the air. The workers quickly moved up and down, in and out, swung from side to side, and rotated 360 degrees.
Quinn described his ideas with Edward J. Prendergast, the department's chief automotive engineer. "Suppose we mounted a nozzle in the basket and attached several lengths of hose line to it. We could pump into it just as we do our water towers. These platforms will provide the manoeuvrability and versatility we lack in water towers that remain stationary. We'd be able to sweep the entire fire floors and at better angles, too. What's more, these same characteristics would make them ideal for rescuing people from upper floors. The Pitman Manufacturing Company, Granview, Missouri, builder of aerial platforms, was contacted and agreed to cooperate in an experiment to test one for fire fighting.
The platforms had been invented in 1951 by Ted Thornton Trump of Oliver, British Columbia. Trump named his invention the Giraffe and built it primarily for orchards, where workers called it a cherry picker. About three years later, Firemen of New Westminster, British Columbia, lifted a hose line in a Giraffe and used it to fight a store fire. But practical development of elevating platforms for fire fighting went no further until they sparked Quinn's innovative curiosity.
In September, 1958, Pitman delivered a 50 foot elevating platform mounted on a General Motors Corporation chassis, and the platforms was outfitted. In the Chicago Fire Department Shops. Tests showed that engines pumping into base mounted water inlets could produce a stream of 1,200 gallons per minute, through a 2" diameter nozzle, at a maximum pressure of 100 psi. The platform got its first test of fire at 1:00 am on the 18th of October, 1958. When it was called to a 4 alarm lumberyard fire on Chicago's south side. Fireman John Windle, operating the nozzle from the basket, helped to bring the blaze under control in a fraction of the time normally expected for a fire of equal magnitude. First Deputy Fire Marshal James A Bailey said "I can't believe how quickly and accurately it worked. It really plastered this fire in a hurry." Chief Fire Marshal Raymond J. Daley said "In 33 yrs of fire fighting I never saw anything as effective and manoeuvrable."
When reporters asked what this weird contraption was called, Windle said "It's Commissioner Quinn's Snorkel." The reporters remarked that this was an unlikely name for a fire apparatus. One even remarked that a snorkel is used underwater (referring to the tube that skin divers use to breath with when the head is underwater, or the device that a submarine uses to get fresh air and still remain underwater.) Windle remarked "That's exactly where I've been for the past hour. Up there in the basket and under water from other streams." From then on, the elevating platform was known as Quinn's Snorkel, and the commissioner soon became known as Snorkel Bob, for his pioneering development of one of the most versatile pieces of fire equipment ever devised.
The TED Trump Company
The Trump D40-D De-icer is a truck mounted unit designed to remove snow and ice with the application of heat, fluid and pressure. Many are still in service today. In 1991, FMC acquired the well-established de-icer manufacturer Trump, and the first 20 FMC Trump de-icers roll off the Orlando, FL. production line.
1998 Nov. 6, Walter E. "Ted" Thornton-Trump, a former
resident of Beaver Lake who was credited with inventing one of the first
"cherry-pickers," the mechanical arms used by utility companies, fire
departments and airlines, has died in Worcestershire, England.
Services for Thornton-Trump, 80, who died Oct. 31 of cancer, will be
Friday in a church near Worcestershire, said a friend, George Jonaitis
of Omaha. Jonaitis said Thornton-Trump had retired in England, the
native country of his second wife, about two years ago.