Fireman Sam (OMC Electronics)

Fireman Sam is one of the successful follow up to the Postman Pat child's ride from OMC Electronics, though it never achieved the same popularity. The ride started its production run in February 1993 after exhibiting at the 1993 ATEI, Earl's Court, London. Production ceased in 1996. Several hundred were manufactured. It made use of the then new 1018 series electronics which had allowed an 80 second theme tune to be stored; thus enabling the entire Fireman Sam theme tune was reproduced by the ride.

## Overview/Look around/Design

The ride is made out of the fire engine, Jupiter. It has Sam driving the fire engine with Elvis and Station Officer Steele sitting in the back. The firemen originally had black coats (which actually looks series-accurate) It was then changed to blue due to the original owners want them bIue. The speaker was originally placed underneath the dashboard. It was then moved near Sam's legs. It has an orange seat for a child to sit in and the coin slot is now moved to the shutters rather than being placed inside like Postman Pat.

## Sound

During attract, it will sound the siren and the start sound which is from Trevor's Training. "Fireman Sam, Fire Evans, call in, on the double!" "Reporting for duty, Sir!" The ride plays the Fireman Sam theme song and the emergency theme during motion. The siren button sounds the siren and the Steele button makes him say "All systems go, Cridlington!" Units that are made in 1994-1996 has the ROSie board which basically is the same thing, just with messages.

## Versions

### Version 1

* The Firemen's coat are black and the speaker is placed underneath the dashboard

### Version 2

* The Firemen's coat are now blue and the speaker is moved near Sam's legs.

### Version 3

* The ride is now fitted with a ROSie board.

### Version 3.5

* For the last units produced, the ride time is shortened from the factory but can be adjusted back. The base now has legs to prevent the ride from being tipped over.

## Other Releases

### Australia

* KidzStuff AU has brought some of these units into Australia. Even Ride On! has owned one of these. While that KidzStuff never manufactured more units of Fireman Sam, they did own a few units which are still manufactured by OMC.

## Common Faults

* The speed of the sound is either high pitch or low pitch. This is due to the speed control on the board not set (set it with a small flat head screwdriver)
* Most units does not have the lights flashing. This is because a bulb has blown and needs replacing.

## Other Variations

* The KidzStuff AU versions of this ride feature the same messages except the more information message. Which is possible that it says "KidzStuff" and their phone number but no recordings of this message can be found.

## Trivia

* This is the first Fireman Sam ride to be made.
* All sounds used in the ride were taken from these episodes: The Kite and Trevor's Training.
* It might have been common in throughout the 90s but finding one of these is very rare nowadays.
* It was another success, but it never achieved the same popularity as Postman Pat.
* The unit at Waves Amusements has now left the building and was in hands of McPizzaPerson to fix the ROSie board. He also painted his new eyes and fixed the siren button. It was then sold to Ethan and sighted in Reddy4Leisure HQ.