Sentinel Railcars - any experts out there?

[Armchair Modeller]

My copy of "Pickled Passengers" arrived this morning - what a fantastic little book, highly recommended! The diagrams, photos and text are fascinating!

 

Pickled Passengers, Paul Bennett, Narrow Gauge Railway Society ISBN IS 978-0-9554326-6-8

 

(I am just a very satisfied customer)

[Mike Bellamy]

There is a real treasure trove of models to make, by the looks of things. I am almost tempted myself

There is a kit available for the Ceylon NG version from Port Wynnstay Models - advertised here (click on picture for larger image)

http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Port_Wynnstay/otherng.htm

 

Mike

[EddieB]

Having had a trawl of Sentinel publications in the Stephenson Locomotive Society library on Monday, I have found the illustration at the top of this thread appears in 'Gear Diven "Sentinel-Cammell" Rail Cars' (Issued March 1928).

 

(There 's a difference - the image at the top of this thread is reversed compared to that in the book).

 

Unfortunately the caption is less than helpful: '"Sentinel-Cammell" Double Car, India".

 

There is nothing more in the text to identify which Indian railway, other than:

 

"In double cars of older designs, the power unit had to be placed between the two passenger compartments, and the controls had to pass through two articulations." (My italics).

 

I think this may help to identify or at least narrow down the possible candidates. Assuming that the illustration shows a standard or broad gauge unit, then the only possible candidates are two supplied to the Bengal Nagpur Railway in 1926, or those supplied to Ceylon Railways (1925 and 1927). (Railcars were supplied to the East Indian rRailway in February 1928, but I don't think it likely their maker would be describing them as "older designs" just one month later). I don't think Sentinel would confuse India and Ceylon (there is another illustration of "No. 2, Ceylon" in the book), then I think it must be Bengal Nagpur. (But I invite others to check their lists also)

 

So we're back to the illustration in Hughes' book. Or maybe not. That shows railcar no. 5, which was slightly different to no. 4 (no. 4 had horizontal cylinders, no. 5 vertical cylinders, according to the works list in the second volume of Thomas). At the end of the day, I'd say it's between these two.

[Armchair Modeller]

Thanks for that new piece of information and your efforts to finally solve the mystery - much appreciated!

 

I could easily have accidentally got my image the wrong way around as it was from a slide.

 

I concur that the 2 broad gauge Bengal Nagpur railcars are probably the only ones that fit the bill. Comparing my illustration with that in Hughes' book, there are undoubtedly very subtle differences, like the lights being in very slightly different positions. My guess would be that as Hughes illustrates No5, my slide could be No4.

 

Several other railways had double-articulated cars, but differences in window arrangement and even body length make them unlikely. Ceylon only had railcars with one passenger section.

 

The East Indian Railway and GIPR had double-articulated railcars, but there seem to have been quite distinct differences to my image. The GIPR cars had buffers, whilst the EIR had buffers and a very different window style for the passenger compartments - as here....

 

 

The GIPR car is shown here http://www.irfca.org/~shankie/irhistorybook/irhistpg2.htm - entry number 67

[nalin]

Ceylon government railway also had several double unit articulated sentinel railcars . Track gauge is 5'6".

[locks]

Hi,

 

I'm not a railway modeller, but I do happen to have inherited some pre-war family photos featuring Sentinel railcars and locos.

 

Two uncles of mine, born and bred in Shrewsbury, joined Sentinel's as apprentices after the First War.  One stayed with Sentinel's all his career, into the Rolls Royce days.  The other became some kind of overseas rep for some years before joining other engineering companies.  It's his photos I now have.  Among them are snaps (and they are only 6 cm x 4 cm snaps) of Sentinel railcars at work in Palestine, Tanganyika and Belgium, the erection of a railcar in Tanganyika, and a steam loco at work in Iraq (one of the pics attached).

 

Are any of you interested to have these, for either historical or modelling reasons?  We'd like them to be of some use to someone.  Doubtless they could all be scanned and copied, but we'd be happy to make the original prints available.

 

Let me know.

 

Richard

 

  

 

 

 

Sentinel Iraq.doc

[Armchair Modeller]

Richard,

 

Your collection sounds really interesting. It would be a shame if these photographs were to remain hidden, as there are many gaps in our knowledge of Sentinel Railcars. I am sure many people would be interested in seeing the images.

 

As a long-term strategy, they should really be donated to a museum, where they can be properly preserved. Such material is unlikely to be available to view for some time if this happens though. 

 

 

I would happily scan the images and make them available on the web, if you would prefer not to do this yourself. Proper acknowledgment would be made for the material. That way they would be available for any interested party to view quickly. 

 

Please let me know if I could be of help.

[jcm@gwr]

There is a kit available for the Ceylon NG version from Port Wynnstay Models - advertised here (click on picture for larger image)

http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Port_Wynnstay/otherng.htm

 

Mike

AFAIA, MetroModels is going to produce a version of the Ceylon railcar.

 

This will be 3D printed, as are all his recent models.

I will check with John next time I see him, as to which one it will be.

 

He has spent quite a lot of time in Sri Lanka, and has seen most (if not all)

the railcars on the island.

 

Jeff 

[Dava]

Just adding to the Sentinel correspondence....

 

I agree a defintive history & photo-collections would be very worthwhile, covering both the exported and UK locos & railcars. I've made much use of 'Sentinel patent locomotives & concrete cases' which EP publishing reprinted in 1974 with technical drawing s & works photos. It is always so useful & interesting to see any new photos as kindly offered by Richard above.

 

The LNER locos & railcars are comparatively well documented, but interior views of cabs, engine compartments etc are rare.

[EddieB]

Hi,

 

I'm not a railway modeller, but I do happen to have inherited some pre-war family photos featuring Sentinel railcars and locos.

 

Two uncles of mine, born and bred in Shrewsbury, joined Sentinel's as apprentices after the First War.  One stayed with Sentinel's all his career, into the Rolls Royce days.  The other became some kind of overseas rep for some years before joining other engineering companies.  It's his photos I now have.  Among them are snaps (and they are only 6 cm x 4 cm snaps) of Sentinel railcars at work in Palestine, Tanganyika and Belgium, the erection of a railcar in Tanganyika, and a steam loco at work in Iraq (one of the pics attached).

 

Are any of you interested to have these, for either historical or modelling reasons?  We'd like them to be of some use to someone.  Doubtless they could all be scanned and copied, but we'd be happy to make the original prints available.

 

Let me know.

 

Richard

Richard,

 

I think this is a very generous offer and would certainly add to the Sentinel material available in the public domain.  Early photographs of locomotives and railcars in service (as opposed to posed works photographs) are always of particular merit.  While original 6cmx4cm prints may not yield themselves readily to publication directly, they might benefit from digital enhancement.

 

I'm wondering whether it might be worthwhile to set up a Yahoo Group* dedicated to Sentinel railway products, to host discussions and sharing of files, lists photographs etc.?

 

Regards,

 

Eddie.

 

*I hope this suggestion doesn't infringe in any way on RMweb.

[ArthurK]

There are interior shots of the LNER Railcars which I posted here.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/15506-sentinel-railcar-interior-details/

 

ArthurK

[Armchair Modeller]

Personally, I find the Yahoo style infuriating, as you can't include photos and drawings with the text of messages - something that would surely be important in a discussion of these railcars.

 

Why not have a group on RMWeb?

 

I do think it would in any case be good to set up a formal website with photos and information. Otherwise the factual information gets lost in the discussion.

 

As I said before, I would be very pleased to help with either.

[Armchair Modeller]

Following the kind offer by Richard Hill to make available images of Sentinels in his possession, I have scanned a few now. Here is a taster.

 

Bruges

 

 Iraq

 

Palestine

 

Tanganyika - erecting a railcar on site

 

 Tanganyika

 

 Tanganyika

 

They were all taken by G Heathcote in 1929 and 1930, when he worked for Sentinel.

 

The scans were taken from very small prints, 60mm x 40mm approx. in size. Some were of very poor quality, but I did my best to get some reasonable detail out of them.

 

In the next few weeks I will set up a small website to show them all.

[Adam]

Those are fascinating pictures, many thanks for sharing them.

 

Adam

[Armchair Modeller]

I was going to set up a web site with all the Gordon Heathcote Sentinel photos on, but that proved a bit awkward, in the end. Instead, I will post all the photos on here over the next few days - 18 in all.

 

This Tanganyika photo appears (I believe) to show Gordon Heathcote, on the right.

 

 

All photos are courtesy of his nephew, Richard Hill

 

The locations cover Belgium, Iraq, Palestine and Tanganyika in 1929-30.

 

 

 

[Armchair Modeller]

Here is the first set, from Belgium.

 

The first two show the railcar in Liege station (which looked to be a very atmospheric building!)

 

 

 

And on to Esneux

 

 

 

and finally, Liege

 

 

That concludes the Belgian photos.

[Armchair Modeller]

The second part includes photos of Iraq and Palestine. This trip is dated 1930. 

 

Firstly, some photos of a Sentinel locomotive near Baghdad

 

 

This one is crossing the River Tigris

 

 

and this one is at Ba'quba

 

 

Moving across to Palestine, these photos were taken at Samakh

 

 

 

The final one is still Palestine, but location not noted.

 

[jwealleans]

Somewhere in a book I have a picture of that Belgian railcar boarding the train ferry at Harwich.

 

Have you seen the albums of Sentinel works photos? They were compiled by a chap called Anthony Thomas and Volume 2 covers rail vehicles.

[Armchair Modeller]

Somewhere in a book I have a picture of that Belgian railcar boarding the train ferry at Harwich.

 

Have you seen the albums of Sentinel works photos? They were compiled by a chap called Anthony Thomas and Volume 2 covers rail vehicles.

Yes, thanks - I do have that book. Unfortunately, the author's interest is clearly towards the road vehicles, so the huge variety of railcars is only marginally represented. Still, better that than nothing - especially as it includes the works list.

 

If only we could compile a list and photos/drawings of all the railcars produced. That would be wonderful!

[Armchair Modeller]

And so to the final batch of photos, set in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1929. These are unfortunately not of the same quality as some of the others.

 

The first few show a Sentinel locomotive, here at Moshe

 

 

...and here, location not known

 

 

The remainder are of a railcar at, or near Tanga.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one shows the erection of the "kit" at Tanga. No etched brass parts and soldering irons in those days!

 

 

That concludes the collection.

 

Sincere thanks again to Richard Hill for giving us all access to these interesting photos.

[Chen Melling]

A great big thanks to Mr. Richard Hill and to Armchair Modeller for making thewse wonderful and rare pictures avaialable. Any chance fo a highter resolution and lower compression rates?

 

I need to correct location identifications for Palestine - while the first one indeed shows one of the two narrow gauge sets purchased for use on the Hijaz Railway lines in Palestine (Samakh being the border station with the neighbouring Hijaz Railway in Syria - CFH), the other two show standard gauge sets, easlily identifiable bu having standard British buffers and draw gear, as opposed to the HR's ventral buffer. The livery was also different, being light grey for the narrow gauge and chcolate brown for the two SG ones, though all four were built so as to be convertible if the need arises (it never did) and thus were almost identicle, except for what has to differ.

 

Should anyone be interested in more information on the PR/HR Sentinel railcars (and single standard gauge DEDG loco) you are welcomed to contact me, preferably through the Israel Railway Museum's email: museum@rail.co.il

[Armchair Modeller]

The original prints these were scanned from were very small, but I do have higher resolution scans of all the images I published above, if anyone needs them.

 

Chen - I will email you later with more information. I did not realise there were standard gauge and narrow gauge Sentinels in Palestine. Perhaps I should have looked more closely at the photos!

[Chen Melling]

Thanks to Armchair Modeller I can now identify the SG Palestine Railways Sentinel railcar in the second picture (next to the stone-lined goods shed) as being No. SC 1. The Palestine sets were numbered SC 1,2 for the standard gauge and SC 11,12 for the narrow gauge/ Surprisingly, perhaps, SC stood for "Steam Car" and not "Sentinel-Cammell".

 

After a closer scurtiny of the second and third photos, I now believe that they were taken at the same location on the same occasion, thus the third picture probably also shows No. SC 1.

[Armchair Modeller]

I recently found a blog showing photos of Ceylon Railways Sentinel railcars, including a double-articulated one. This is similar to, but not quite the same as the one in my original post.

 

http://ceyrail.blogspot.co.uk/2013_06_01_archive.html

 

One of these days I am going to have to make a model of one of these beasts!

[Armchair Modeller]

Just to round things off, this is the list of double-articulated Sentinel railcars I am now fairly sure about. That is the type with a 4-wheeled power car in the centre and coach sections articulated from both ends.

 

 

Broad Gauge

Great Indian Peninsula Railway (India)

Ceylon Government Railways

East Indian Railway Railway (India)

Bengal Nagpur Railway (India)

 

Standard Gauge

Entre Rios (Argentina)

 

Metre gauge

Nizam State Railway (India)

 

2ft 6in Gauge

Bengal Nagpur Railway (India)

 

All of these are based on photographic evidence.

 

The original photo I posted must be the broad gauge Bengal Nagpur version, unless new information comes to light in the future. All of the others have significant features different to the railcar in my photo, mainly things like the window layout, buffers etc.