Theory: GCS Was Really Federal Electric

[Chicagosiren-hunters]

Hey all, I haven't posted in a while, but I have a theory based upon General City Services (GCS):

...It never existed...

Unless someone can provide proof (be it an advert, a mention of the name from an official source, or what have you), I believe that someone pulled the name out of thin air, kinda like what happened with San Onofre's sirens.

My Proof: See below!

"GCS" Model 3 in Bagley, IA

Picture of the tag...from Federal Electric; the same tags seen on Fedelcodes from the era.

My belief is that this housing design mimics the Fedelcode model 3L's that litter Los Angeles; reducing material usage for the war effort. If this ends up being true, that would mean every "GCS" siren would be a Federal Electric dated roughly 1942-1945.

If anyone else has ID tag pictures of these sirens, or knows more about GCS, post below!

[SirensOfNewYork]

So GCS might have never been a company?

Maybe the house was just rebranded as Federal? All GCS did was make the housing, right?

[Ohio_Man]

Could it be one of those "paper" companies, i.e. a company that exists on paper as a sort of subsidiary but doesn't have the presence of a real company?

This sounds weird but for some companies like railroads, restaraunts franchisees and trucking companies it's more common. Near me there's a company called Ison family restaraunts, but they franchise 3-4 mcdonald's and a pizza place. Technically on paper they exist as restaraunts but the restaraunts themselves are mcdonalds as evidenced by the signage.

Near me there's a railroad called the Indiana and Ohio but it's owned by a company called Genessing and Wyoming, a company that owns more than 30 railroads worldwide including Australia.

[Brendan W]

I honestly think GCS was just a distributor for Federal products implying they existed at all.

[Synther]

Salt Lake City purchased their system of GCS sirens in 1954, almost ten years after the war ended. I'm sticking with GCS.

[Tyler]

I still feel that further evidence needs to be uncovered before making assumptions. I mentioned this on Facebook too, just because the tag is Federal doesn't mean that it wasn't distributed by someone else. If we're going by that logic, then Darley's distributed sirens aren't Darley at all. It's just Federal with a fancy housing. Furthermore, Federal was never one to bend over backwards to make the Model X series of sirens look pretty or fancy, so the chances of them bothering with making rounded housings like that in my opinion are slim to none, especially during WWII.

Now to start with some more digging, Daniel posted this back in 2009:

General City Services made sirens in Minneapolis with Federal innards. They have that distinctive top like a pith helmet and a lower louvre larger than the top, while Darleys of the period usually had domed tops.

https://www.airraidsirens.net/forums/vi ... ces#p54251

If I recall, Daniel also owned a GCS Model 2 at one point.

[Ziginox]

Could it be one of those "paper" companies, i.e. a company that exists on paper as a sort of subsidiary but doesn't have the presence of a real company?

This sounds weird but for some companies like railroads, restaraunts franchisees and trucking companies it's more common. Near me there's a company called Ison family restaraunts, but they franchise 3-4 mcdonald's and a pizza place. Technically on paper they exist as restaraunts but the restaraunts themselves are mcdonalds as evidenced by the signage.

DBAs do get pretty wild, I worked for a company that never actually used their name, but it's what showed on our paychecks. Everything else was done under their DBA.

If we're going by that logic, then Darley's distributed sirens aren't Darley at all. It's just Federal with a fancy housing.

Do keep in mind that Darley produced a lot of their own designs, as well.