Private equity had other ideasThis past Valentine’s Day, a firefighter behind the wheel of an enormous ladder truck felt his brakes give out. Rising prices: by the mid-2010s, the average engine truck cost $300k to $500k . Ladder trucks, now mostly built custom, are even more expensive: as high as $2m . by the mid-2010s, the average engine truck cost . Storm Lake, in Iowa, recently committed $2.8m over ten years to replace a ladder truck that’s 35 years old.