Fighting Fires in Westville

I am not a firefighter so I may not know what I am talking about here but one thing that always puzzled me was why Westville's multiple (Union & Independent) fire companies (pre-1980s merger) were both located on the same side of the tracks. (A couple of miles up the road Westville Grove's (Deptford) Tacoma fire company was also on the same side of the tracks.) Granted that side contained the town's small business district but if a fire occurred in the Newbold section and one of the PRSL 100 car trains happened to be going through town that would be an issue. Before the Timber Creek trestle replacement 10 mph speed limits meant the freight trains did not exactly hustle through town.

I vaguely remember talk of one such fire where the fire trucks had to go over the Broadway Timber Creek highway bridge to the first Brooklawn circle, under the railroad overpass, through the second Brooklawn circle and back into Westville on the Gateway Blvd Timber Creek highway bridge to the other side of town to answer a fire call.

I believe the same situation existed (on the other side of the tracks) in Woodbury where the main Friendship fire company and the Colonial fire company also were located on the same side of the tracks.

Later we moved to Woodbury Heights which only had 1 fire company which was located right next to the tracks!

Anyway, the old Independent Fire Co is a half block off my layout (perhaps a background picture off Pine street?). To get the Union Fire Co on the layout I will have to turn their building at the end of Olive street to be able to get a fire truck model on the layout.