David Eilers

Ohio State Patrol's CJ-2As and Trailers

While researching the Airstream history, I discovered a couple photos of the Ohio State Patrol's communication trailers and jeeps, purchased in '46 or '47. There were several of these combos used for special tasks, such as enforcing aviation offenses.

This photo was posted to Cleveland.com (have to scroll down a bit):

ohio-state-highway-patrol-jeep-and-trailer1

This photo was posted onto LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ohio-state-highway-patrol_oshp90th-activity-7126255477654523905-RtsY?trk=public_profile_like_view

ohio-state-highway-patrol-jeep-and-trailer2

5 Comments

  1. Barney Goodwin
    I appreciate this post. I have a b&w glossy given me by a late Trooper of one of these trailers set up in a micro park here in Pike County Ohio near Waverly. It was OSP's first Patrol Post for the county.
  2. Brad
    Interesting tongue support system in the second photo. Probably took some real skill to back up.
  3. Barney Goodwin
    Brad, your comment made me look closer. That's a dolly that trailer is hooked to, like the dollies on semi doubles. And if you look close, you can see the landing leg with the steel wheel on it for the trailer itself. And even back then, OSP probably had a full day training and certification to operate that rig. In fairness, even with the slow speeds back then, I can see the Patrol pull that to a location with a car and then hook the Jeep up to it to move it around at the event as an incident command center and such as well as act as a mobile power unit for the trailer. I think of further interest to us in the Jeep world is how those low-band radio sets are being powered, You can see the Jeep's set on the wheel well and an antenna indicates one in the trailer. Perhaps there was a PTO generator on the Jeep similar to the military Z systems on some MBs.
  4. Tom Jones
    In 1970 I bought a Jeep from a Yakima Ridge Runners Jeep club member. It had a "Two Meter" radio with a large unit on the right rear fender well and an antenna about 6 feet long. The Ridge Runners had bought those radios from the Washington State Patrol when WSP transitioned to newer radios. I remember some of those guys saying they could talk to one of their members that worked at the jeep dealership, Inland Motors, in Yakima from up in the Ahtanum, in the mountains about 40 miles west of Yakima. I don't know if mine still worked or not but uninstalled it as fast as I could.
  5. David Eilers
    Tom, Well that's pretty cool! Last time I was up on the Naches I was disappointed to learn that my cell phone would reach the external world. Up til that time, the Cascades were always a way to escape the world. The good and bad of tech I suppose. - Dave

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