Article 26 June/July 2010
My website project is complete - and it only took me 6 years! We had taken thousands of photos over the years, of Crestline and Ambucraft ambulances and specialty vehicles. Now in retirement, I wanted to make those photos available to the EMS community. I also wanted to include my collection of classic ambulance, hearse and limousine photos which I had accumulated from archives and private collectors. In total, it took me four years to organize and scan the photos and a further two years to upload the images to my website www.EMSclassics.com.
The website consists of 17,200 images, of which 7,800 are from Crestline, 1,400 are from Ambucraft and 6,000 are of classics. Canadian images total 11,400, US images 4,250, and a further 1,500 are from 75 other countries. I am grateful to the many people in Canada, the US and The Netherlands who provided their photo collections to me - without their valuable assistance the collection would not be what it has become.
Each of the images on the website can be purchased (without the watermark). Most of the images are priced at $5 or $10, a few special ones are priced $20 or $40. Proceeds from the sale of the images are donated to the Paramedic Association of Canada Benevolent Society.
Next time you have time to waste, go to my website and check if any photos from your town or city are included. And be sure to check the THEMES category; themes such as Action Photos, Vehicles in Distress, and My Favorite Photos. Some of the images have missing information, others may have errors - please send your corrections to me at peteradsten@shaw.ca. And if you, or someone you know, has old ambulance photos in an album or in a box down in the basement, let me know - I would like to add even more photos to the website.
Copyright 2010 Peter Adsten
An example of the images on the EMSclassics website is this 1964 Superior Pontiac from Starr's Ambulance, Calgary AB.
Lorne Stevens