Don't know about the fire engines themselves, but I stopped at a firehouse in central Manhattan when I was there, and in the entrance (where the trucks come out onto the street) there was a plaque on the wall with a photo and a name of each firefighter who died that belonged to that "ladder". One guy there told me that every firehouse in the city that lost a firefighter had the same thing, and if there was a "company" that was lucky enough not to lose a member, then they had pics up of friends or reletives who were firefighters that were lost. Very sad indeed.

And I agree about seeing it on TV makes it almost unreal, like something like that could never happen. Which is what I think fascinates me about it. I'm not interested in it in a morbid way, but more so that it was on such an unprecidented scale, and so "unreal" that it becomes fascinating. And you are also right - when you get there (Ground Zero) and see the place, the Iron Cross in the middle, the police, firefighters, and tributes/pictures/shrines, etc, it becomes VERY real and is quite quite chilling. Rather unsettling in a way, and very very moving. I was on the verge of tears myself, I have no problem admitting, whilst I stood there on the sidewalk outside the Ground Zero barriers reading the plaquards that were put up with all the info, times, dates, backround history and naturally, all the names of both civilians and fire dept/Police dept, etc who died in the attacks. I had to choke back a few for sure...