Sentinel Railcars - any experts out there?

[Armchair Modeller]

I wonder if anyone could identify the railway this Sentinel double-articulated railcar belongs to, please. There is no description of any kind with the image.

The only railways I know of having double-articulated Sentinels were the Bengal-Najpur, Great Indian Peninsula and Palestine Railways. I doubt if this one was for the GIP, as a photo of one of theirs is on an Indian railway history site and it looks very different.

Any help would be appreciated

Edit

Subsequently proved not to be Palestine. See post below.

[ArthurK]

I have a copy of a book published by Sentinal Cammell in 1929 details many of their railcars in use around the world. I cannot find an exact match with the photo but the contents might help you to narrow things down a little.

 

I scanned the book in some time ago. I you send me a PM with your Email address I can send a copy to you. I guess that it is well of of copyright by now.

 

ArthurK

[Armchair Modeller]

Arthur, that would be extremely kind. A PM wil shortly be on its way.

 

I strongly suspect the photo I have is of a fairly early one. The fragile-looking front end and the bogie design look to be from the mid-1920s? Things seem to have progressed quite quickly in the early years.

 

Richard

[PhilJ W]

It is probably one of the Palestinian ones of which they had a pair. They are described in Wikipedia as being 'two cars coupled together via a central bogie'. However the LNER had a similar articulated unit but with the boiler fitted at the outside end of one of the units.

[HSB]

That book sounds like a valuable source of information, Arthur. According to the NGRS book 'Pickled Passengers' most of the official records were destroyed when Sentinel was taken over by Rolls Royce!

 

[Orinoco]

It is probably one of the Palestinian ones of which they had a pair. They are described in Wikipedia as being 'two cars coupled together via a central bogie'. However the LNER had a similar articulated unit but with the boiler fitted at the outside end of one of the units.

 

I wondered about that too, but the Wikepedia article describes 2 coaches on 3 bogies (presumably a bit like "Phenomena" on the LNER), whereas the photo above shows two coaches articulated to a separate 4-wheel "locomotive" portion (rigidly attached to its axles) between - so only 2 proper bogies. That could just be the wording is not clear enough, of course.

 

The East Indian Railway had 3 a bit like the one in the photo, but with a proper buffer beam at each end and a ventilated clerestory over the engine compartment. There is a photo somewhere on one of the Indian Railway historical sites.

 

The book "An Album of Sentinel Works Photographs No2" gives a works list, but don't give a complete description.

 

Though Sentinel's records have been destroyed, maybe the Metropolitan Cammell collection might shed some light on the mystery?

[Armchair Modeller]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I almost duplicated Orinoco's entry, but just read it in time. The Palestinian ones are difficult to guess without a drawing or a photograph as they were built around the time the Sentinel railcar design switched from a semi-articulated design to rigid frames with bogies.

 

Photos of the few railcars I have found suggest that those of standard gauge and larger had prominent buffer beams beyond 1926 or 1927. My best guess now is that even if the PR sets had a rigid engine unit in the middle, they ought to have this buffer beam feature too, as they were built in 1928.

 

I am no expert, but the front end of the railcar in my original entry suggests an earlier design. Maybe it is a photo of a Bengal Najpur 5ft 6in gauge railcar after all - or if not, something similar built for another railway around the same period (1926)? We may never know!

[EddieB]

"The Railways of Palestine and Israel" by Paul Cotterell (pub. Tourret, 1984) has photographs and drawings of the Palestine double-articulated railcars. While there are family likenesses, the general layout and window arrangements sugfgest these are not the same as that in the photo.

[EddieB]

Looking at a picture of a Bengal-Nagpur set on page 23 of Hugh Hughes' "Indian Locomotives - Part 1" (pub. CRC 1990), my first reaction was that it looked dissimilar to the one in original post. However, after a second look and taking into account the different angles, I think it could be the same. The original does appear to be broad gauge, and most of the fittings seem to match.

[ArthurK]

Photo of Palestinian Railways Sentinal from the above mentioned book

 

 

ArthurH

[peach james]

It looks to me to be one of the centre boilered jobs, rather than the Palestine Railways job, which looks like it is a end boilered, 6 cylindered job. I don't quite believe all the Sentinel records, as there are some strange things which happened with regards to railcars.

 

5 came to North America, apparently unsucessfully. Photos in Newfoundland Railway Vol 2.

 

James

[Armchair Modeller]

Thanks, everyone for your very helpful contributions! The picture of the PR one was very useful in eliminating this as a possibility. I will have to get a copy of the Indian Locomotives book.

 

I noticed a few strange things in the "Sentinel" book by Anthony Thomas, particularly where dates and works numbers seem to jump around a bit.

[ArthurK]

A smaller photo in the Sentinal Cammell book is this one. It is listed as "India" and shows a lot of the local populance gathered around it.

 

 

Richard, your CD will be in the post tomorrow.

 

ArthurK

[Armchair Modeller]

Arthur, you are a star. Many thanks

 

The railcar in your latest photo looks to be around metre gauge, but of the same general period as my original photo.

 

I have a drawing from the NGRM forum, supplied very kindly by David Churchill, showing the 2ft 6in gauge Bengal Nagpur railcars

 

 

The 3 seem to be of the same general period in Sentinel railcar development, but subtly different. Looking quickly down the list in the "Sentinel" book by Thomas, the only metre gauge (or thereabouts) railcars for India around this period were 2 for the Nizams State Railways in 1927, following on more or less straight after the LMS railcars in works number order.

 

I am beginning to think that there must have been rather more of these 3-section articulated railcars than I first imagined.

[EddieB]

The Bengal Nagpur Railway operated both broad (5'6") and narrow (2'6") gauge lines, both in receipt of Sentinel articulated railcars:

 

Broad gauge - nos 4-5 (Sent 6009,6128/1926)

Narrow gauge - nos 2-3 (Sent 6126,6127/1926)

 

There were detail variations between those supplied for the two gauges.

 

The original picture at the top of this thread clearly looks to be of broad gauge, whereas the diagram and photo in posts #13 and #14 show narrow gauge examples.

[Armchair Modeller]

Many thanks for the additional information on Sentinel Railcars, Eddie. Combined with theadditional information in your PM I think there are enough detail differences between the Bengal-Nagpur railcars and my original photo to think that it is not a BN one.

 

The passenger windows are my main reason for thinking not BN - my original photo has single glass panels in all the side windows, whereas the BN railcars all seem to have 4 panes.

 

Some broad gauge ones were built for Ceylon around the same time, as well as for Argentina. I have no photos or other information to compare with though. From what little information I have, these 3-section railcars do seem to have been something of an Indian sub-continent speciality.

[Armchair Modeller]

No sooner do I reach one conclusion than something turns up to prove me wrong

 

In THIS blog, there are photos showing that 3-section Sentinel railcars went to Argentina - to the Entre Rios line. The entry also includes photos of later triple-bogie 2-coach versions too. None look quite like my original photo though.

[Armchair Modeller]

My conclusion after further information is that the railcar in my original photo could be for the Bengal Nagpur - or if not, then an almost identical railcar for another railway.

 

My point about the windows being wrong was incorrect - someone pointed out to me that what I was looking at were the shutters, not the windows.

 

There are very minor differences between the confirmed BNR photo in the Indian Locomotives book mentioned above and my own photo. The 2 broad gauge railcars were not built consecutively though, so one might well have had subtle differences from the other, paricularly where holes had to be cut or drilled for lights etc.

 

Unless someone comes up with further information, I think we shall have to leave it at that.

 

Many thanks again for everyone who helped me.

 

Richard

[EddieB]

The only photo I can find of a Sentinel broad gauge railcar in Ceylon is of a single unit type (Railways of Sri Lanka) - but the window style was similar to your original photo.

[Armchair Modeller]

The only photo I can find of a Sentinel broad gauge railcar in Ceylon is of a single unit type (Railways of Sri Lanka) - but the window style was similar to your original photo.

 

Thanks Eddie. My guess is that the window style you mention was essentially for railways in warmer climates. As a very broad generalisation, the railcar sides were built up with body panels of a standard length. Each panel had either 2 large or 3 small windows. The large windows were LNER style, with a large lower pane and a hinged narrow pane above for ventilation. The smaller window type allowed the whole pane to drop into the lower panelling. Slatted wooden ventilator panels were often included with these, which could be pulled over the window apertures to cut out the sunlight, but provide ventilation.

 

Several railways appear to have had more than one order, spread over several years - including (I think) Ceylon. Successive batches may have been very different in style and arrangement - the Central Railway of Peru is a good example of this, receiving 3 deliveries of very different appearance, mechanical design and layout.

 

A comprehensive history of Sentinel Railcars and locomotives is really needed. Personally, I think they are one of the few great British railway innovatory successes of the inter-war period. Enthusiasts seem to despise them and write them off as miserable failures, but in truth they were a really great idea, until eclipsed by the internal combustion engine. Most of the so-called innovations in "proper" steam in the UK in the inter-war period and even the Edwardian period seem to have been simply plagiarised ideas from America and Europe.

[EddieB]

A comprehensive history of Sentinel Railcars and locomotives is really needed. Personally, I think they are one of the few great British railway innovatory successes of the inter-war period. Enthusiasts seem to despise them and write them off as miserable failures, but in truth they were a really great idea, until eclipsed by the internal combustion engine. Most of the so-called innovations in "proper" steam in the UK in the inter-war period and even the Edwardian period seem to have been simply plagiarised ideas from America and Europe.

 

I'm inclined to agree with you, Richard. There are the two volume sets "The Sentinel" (Vol 1 Hughes & Thomas, Vol 2 Thomas & Thomas) and "An Album of Sentinel Works Photographs" (Nos 1 and 2, Thomas & Thomas), which cover all Sentinel product categories (especially steam waggons), but not illustrating every item produced (though I suspect works photos, at least, may still exist). Then there's the recent "Pickled Passengers" (Sentinel narrow gauge railcars, Bennett, published by NGRS), which is an interesting read, but not comprehensive.

 

As you can tell, this particular topic has caught my interest. Not just the railcars, but the diversity of their locomotives to which the works number lists give hints, but often no idea of what they actually looked like!

 

I note that there is quite a lot of material in the Stephenson Locomotive Society library collection, including contemporary brochures and articles in "Locomotive Magazine". Much to look through when I next pay a visit to the library, but unfortunately my next opportunity to visit may be some time away.

[Orinoco]

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

[Armchair Modeller]

Eddie, good luck with your search.

 

If we are really lucky you might find the photo originally posted by me at the top of this topic - it certainly looks as if it might have originally been prepared for a publication.

 

The problem now is which one to build - it all seemed so much simpler when I started the topic off!

[AMJ]

Comments in the Thomas (vol 1 & 2) of the history do seem to indicate that the railcars and locos evolved as time and customer requirements changed. I'm about 3/4 through vol 2 having decided I wanted to look up something in vol 1 and ended up reading the pair.

 

According to various lists there are some of the Ceylon cars still in existence both the 2'6" and 5'6" gauge ones.

http://colombofort.com/narrow.gauge.railways.htm 2'6" one in steam recently (single car).

At Dematagoda (Columbo) they have a railway museum.

[Armchair Modeller]

I did find some photos on the web of both BG and NG Sri Lankan Sentinels a few days ago, but can't find the site now. They were largely abandoned and rotting away, but still interesting.