Sentinel Steam Waggon: Nothing quite like it for warming the blood

When my eyes fell on this 1931 Sentinel Steam Waggon, the first thought that sprang to mind was, “Steam, steam, glorious steam”. I then realised I had mentally paraphrased the words of the mid-century comedy duet, Flanders & Swann. In The Hippopotamus Song, they warbled…

Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow in glorious mud
Now look what I’ve done…

Sorry Hippopotamus, but for me, it’s steam, steam, glorious steam in which I prefer to wallow. And in my mind, steam reached its apotheosis in the railway locomotive.

Corgi model of a Tate & Lyle Sentinel steam waggon

Steam trains were commonplace in my formative years, and I gloried in the wonderful aroma emanating from the engine, that heady amalgam of coal, hot oil, sulphur carried in a delicious vapour. I would poke my head out of the carriage window and sniff the nectar of the gods, retreating with a face well freckled with soot: Michael! What have you done now?

View this vintage 1959 recording of Flanders & Swann performing their Hippopotamus song

Obsessed as my young self was with railways and their stunning and smelly engines, I didn’t give much thought to steam road vehicles, probably because steam lorries had by then almost reached the end of their useful existence.

I did spy the odd Sentinel steam lorry chugging through the streets of my home town, and I was captivated. And even after all these years, I can still visualise a Sentinel steam waggon in the livery of Tate & Lyle, the sugar refiners and purveyors of the addictive (especially to an eight-year-old) Lyle’s Golden Syrup, as it chugged up the hill past my grandfather’s grocery store in Wigan.

Entrepreneurial tendencies

Most likely precisely because steam vehicles were before my time, I have always entertained a curiosity and an interest in learning more. Had I been born a few decades earlier, no doubt I would have harboured entrepreneurial thoughts of owning a fleet of steam lorries, shovelling coal, siphoning water from unlikely spots and pressing that resilient throttle.

All this came rushing to mind when I beheld a gleaming Sentinel Steam Waggon (yes, that’s right, waggon. Sentinel made waggons, everyone else made wagons) about to be fired up. The accompanying pictures, I hope, will also fire your imagination. Isn’t this a handsome vehicle in its green Grieve Haulage coat? And isn’t it a glorious relic of a lost age of steam road transport? Flanders & Swann would most likely have created a memorable song in its honour. Steam, steam, glorious steam.

Sentinel and Foden

The steam lorry, wagon or waggon, was a major player in commercial transport in the first four decades of the last century. In Britain, the principal manufacturers were Sentinel of Shrewsbury, whose lorries were marketed as “waggons” with double G, and Foden of Sandbach, Cheshire, just 42 miles away. The term “wagon” in relation to a commercial vehicle has long been unfashionable, but I remember that in my youth in northern England, drivers would invariably refer to their “wagon”.

Punitive legislation

Steam power had led the transport revolution in Britain throughout the 19th century, but its use in road vehicles was prevented by punitive legislation. Steam lorries first became a commercial proposition in 1896 with the repeal of the so-called Red Flag Act, which had previously insisted on a person with a red flag walking in front of any powered road vehicle. Even then, they were restricted to a maximum speed of 20 mph.

Emancipation led to a rapidly developing market for Sentinel and Foden in particular. And for nearly 50 years, steam lorries or wagons were a regular sight on Britain’s roads. They were major players on the transport scene, being developed into a highly efficient and powerful vehicle designed to beat competition from the petrol and diesel lorry.

This Sentinel Steam Waggon SD4, registration number UX 8724 (vehicle number 8448) is something of an oddity. Manufactured in 1931, it was the first shaft-driven steam lorry made by Sentinel and is unique. It had an all-new four-cylinder single-acting engine and was shod with pneumatic tyres from the factory.

According to Dawn Goold of the Sentinel Drivers’ Club, this particular vehicle was the stepping stone from old-road steam to modern-road steam: “The S-Type, developed two years later in 1933, probably represents the most advanced steam technology reached in the field of road-haulage. At the time there was great rivalry between Sentinel and Foden. It could be argued Foden won in the end, successfully transitioning to diesel (seeing the future of things to come) and surviving longer than Sentinel.”

UX 8724 was purchased by Grieve Haulage Co, Ltd, of New Ferry, on the Wirral peninsular, opposite the port of Liverpool. It was used for general haulage, complete with trailer, until 1947. Different liveries were applied (see the video at the bottom of this article) but the waggon has now been restored to its original Grieve paint work and graphics.

The second man

With my interest well and truly piqued, I consulted an old friend, whose father Frank had been a lorry driver all his life. As I had hoped, Frank’s first job had indeed involved steam wagons.

Frank left school in 1923, aged 14½, to become “second man” on a Conroy Brothers’ Foden steam wagon in Wigan, Lancashire. His role was to ensure that the fire was kept well stoked with coal from the hopper behind the driver’s cab.

He was also responsible for monitoring steam pressure and water level in the boiler. The daily grind was to tour the potato fields of west Lancashire, and this involved finding water every 40 or so miles from whatever source they could discover — the canal, the local river or every so often a roadside ditch.

The Foden was chain-driven, and we even know the registration number, EK 900, which suggests that it was manufactured just before the First World War. By comparison, the Sentinel Waggon in this article is a sleek, ultra-modern workhorse, although it would still have required a driver’s mate to look after the engine, fuel, and water.

Drivers’ Club

1933 Sentinel Driver’s manual (courtesy of the Sentinel Drivers’ Club)

The Sentinel came to life in my eyes after visiting the Sentinel Drivers’ Club website, which is a treasure trove for all steam vehicle enthusiasts. I learned that there was more to preparing, fettling and driving a steam lorry than meets the eye, or is revealed in Frank’s 1920s anecdote.

They were a bit of a handful, by all accounts. In this 1933 drivers’ manual for Sentinel Model S waggons, the daily routine involved a great deal more than pressing the starter button:

Lighting Up: Unhook ashpan, tilt fire grate, clean out and replace, half filling ashpan with water. Lift stoking chute lid, light some shavings or a small piece of waste soaked in paraffin and throw down on to grate. Follow up with firewood (preferably without nails) until there is a thick fire… Shut off both top and bottom water gauge cocks. Open drain, then open and close top and bottom cocks in succession…

Eat your heart out, Elon Musk

The instructions drone on…

Before Starting: Fill the bunker. The bunkers are filled through the cab roof. If they cannot be filled by standing on the platform of the waggon a ladder is supplied. Fill the water tanks… Remember your Driving Licence and Insurance Certificate… See that you have a clean bright fire before starting… Fill the cylinder lubricator with cylinder oil… on the bottom of the sump… there is a drain cock. This must be opened and water drained out until the oil begins to run…

Starting: Place reversing lever in start position (right forward) and open foot throttle valve slightly — when waggon is under way, pull lever into half-way position which gives an earlier cut-off and when a speed of 8 to 10 mph is reached pull lever into the third position (forward fast). The best throttle position will readily be found — excessive opening will only waste steam and draw the fire into holes, cause the emission of sparks and leave no head of steam when a hill is encountered…

Changing Gear: Owing to the enormous power output of a Steam Engine at low speeds, it is impractical to fit a clutch and, as the low gear is provided for emergencies only, the gear box has not been designed for changing gear while running, consequently the waggon must be brought to a standstill when a change is necessary and under no circumstances should this be attempted when under way… it is preferable to change at the foot of a steep hill or before negotiating soft ground, but, in strange country, if an unexpected stiff rise is encountered on an already severe gradient, then apply both brakes. After bringing the waggon to a standstill the gear lever should be slipped into neutral and the required gear engaged…

Sentinel Driver’s Manual, 1933
See a wide variety of Sentinel steam waggons (and a few diesel Sentinels) tackle the old Sentinel test route over the Horseshoe Pass in Wales. At 5.44 you can see UX8724, the subject of this article, in its former livery, “I.N.Woollett, Amersham, Bucks”

No bed of roses

Now you know how to do it. Driving or “second manning” a steam waggon was definitely no bed of roses.

The surprising fact is that steam lorries remained popular and numerous up to the Second World War, despite the advances made by the petrol or diesel engine, which required less preparation and maintenance along the route.

Have you ever driven a steam-powered vehicle?

This is the largest vehicle Mike has ever driven — 89 long tons (whatever they are, but they’re heavy) of steaming magnificent. And at a cool 20 mph. Now where is the brake? (Wikipedia Creative Commons attributed to en:User:Ballista)
This is the largest vehicle Mike has ever driven — 89 long tons (whatever they are, but they’re heavy) of steaming magnificence. And at a cool 20 mph. Now where’s the brake? (Wikipedia Creative Commons attributed to en:User:Ballista)

I can claim the first scalp with my tale of piloting the famous King George V steam engine. Any more scalps to be had? Let’s have your views in the comments section below.

Built at Swindon in 1927, King George V had been restored and rebuilt at Bulmer’s cider factory in Hereford, where it took pride of place in the now-defunct Bulmer’s Steam Centre. On a visit in the mid-1970s as guest of the then managing director of Bulmers, Peter Prior, I was delighted to find George V steamed up and ready for a test drive. All in my honour.

I drove the King along the private track at probably no more than 20 mph, but what an experience! Fortunately, I was not expected to stoke the boiler or adjust the multitude of controls. This remarkable engine remained at Bulmers until 1990 when it moved to the steam railway museum at Swindon, fortunately still intact thanks to my unparalleled driving skills.

A note on the lens

The Sentinel Steam Waggon was photographed by the author using a Panasonic Lumix S5II and Lumix 20-60 f/3.5-5.6 kit zoomthe beginner’s outfit of the L-Mount world. The wide 20mm end of this zoom is particularly useful for photography of vehicles in confined spaces. Most of these photographs were taken at settings between 20 and 28mm, with just a few at 38mm. All in all, the combination of the Lumix S5 or S5II and this underrated little zoom makes for an ideal set-up for static event photography of this nature.


Read more on vintage vehicles on Macfilos

Read more on the Panasonic S5

Read more on the Lumix 20-60 zoom




39 COMMENTS

  1. Wonderful story and photos.
    Seems like a big lift to raise the cargo up to the bed.
    I have back problems, so this makes me cringe.

    • I suppose the driver and his mate in the 1920s thought nothing of the manual labour. Now they’d need a lifting device to comply with Health & Safety. Did you notice that there was an accessory ladder so the “second man” could climb up and pour coal through the chute on top of the cab? Fun days…

    • BTW, my family has a small live steam model of a similar vehicle. For some reason, it runs better in reverse gear than in forward. Still fun.

      • Fascinating… any pictures?

        As an aside, the old Scott two-stroke motorcycle was notorious for it’s habit of running backwards. Open the throttle and, if the two-stroke was feeling mischievous, it would reverse and send the rider racing backwards. Those were the days…

  2. I recall that Whitby seafront had Elizabeth the only Sentinel public bus running for years. I think the owners converted it from a lorry chassis. It was a wonderful part of the seafront until it disappeared, no idea where it is today, or if it is running. I loved the smell of it.

    Lovely article Mike as it reminded me of Elizabeth, and then the fact I hadn’t seen her in recent years.

  3. Hopefully not getting too parochial, but I understand ‘Historic’ vehicles 40+ years old are exempt from ULEZ, so the smoke-belching Steam Waggon should be OK if it were to visit (and ditto my 1977 Land-Rover, also not a model of exhaust purity …)

    • I am wanting to return to a simpler life. I am going to be looking for a vintage Land Rover. No electronics or sensors that fail or AI. I am tired of my life being overly complicated.

        • Mike, your question, I assumed to be humorous, highlights a very good point.

          I gather that steam power lasted far longer in the UK than USA. As witnessed steam locomotives and the comment from Stephen about the steam powered paving rollers.

          The final gasp of steam power in the USA, as far as my amateur observations, was cranes and pile-driving hammers. In fact, the old Vulcan steam hammers were powered by huge air compressors for a few years before being replaced by the German-designed Diesel hammers.

          I think one of the reasons for the demise of steam for any power purpose was the early and rapid adoption of Diesel on American railroads. This meant that by the 1960s, trained boiler operators had mostly moved on to other work.

          Steam-powered excursion trains became popular in the USA starting in the mid-1960s, reaching a peak in the 1990s. But the scarcity of skilled operators took its toll, culminating in an explosion in 1995, when due to low water the crown sheet was heated red hot and failed. The National Transportation Safety Board attributed the failure to “lack of the specialized knowledge, skills, and training necessary to properly maintain a steam locomotive.”

          If interested, you can read about it here:

          https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SIR9605.pdf

          • Thanks, Martin. It probably was intended to be humorous! As I am sure you know, there are many restored “museum” lines in the UK — too many to list — and all seem to have a ready supply of engine drivers and stokers. Probably it hasn’t been a problem here.

          • Don’t want to get into a ‘them and us’ debate here but after some spectacular boiler explosions here in the 1850s-1870s, I think we encouraged our loco/boiler designers to include a ‘fusible plug’, made of a metal with a lower melting point which basically melted away in a low-water crisis, releasing boiler pressure and avoiding an explosion. Needless to say, big embarrassment for a loco crew if they ‘dropped the plug’ through inattention to water levels – but embarrassment is surely better than being scalded to death and incidentally peppering the surrounding countryside with metal shrapnel from an exploding boiler. Incidentally we still run steam-hauled rail excursions in the UK but the huge penalties imposed if they have problems that delay scheduled serviced on the same line mean there’s usually a diesel at the rear of the train to rescue it if necessary, without it getting in anyone’s way. Also, the footplate crews on our steam locos usually come from the freight companies, who are nowadays the only ones with route knowledge spanning several regions, whereas express train drivers tend to just go tiddly-bomp from London to Edinburgh (or wherever) and back, without visiting the more obscure places away from the main line that steam excursions often like to visit. Sorry, drifted a ling way from steam waggons …

      • Land Rovers in the USA originally had the headlights recessed by the grille, to protect from brush.

        At some point they were moved out to the fenders, where they are vulnerable. (I am speaking of real Land rovers here, not the urban ones sold today).

        I always wondered if that change was initiated by the manufacturer, or some U.S. nanny law.

        • Same here in the UK – the earliest Series 1 Land Rovers had headlights and radiator behind one all-over grille, which later became three separate same-size vertical grlles, finally replaced by an inverted T with the uncovered headlights either side of its vertical leg. That continued with the Series II, the very last ones of which moved the headlights onto the front wings/fenders, which continued with the Series III and later Defender. No idea whether the changes were to comply with US legislation or just ‘natural evolution/production rationalisation’. By comparison, the first Morris Minor – like the Landie, launched in 1948 – had low-mounted headlights in the front grille, until US laws meant they had to be moved to a higher position on redesigned front wings/fenders – at least they stayed cleaner longer, away from the constant spray of road muck.

    • Never thought of that. Must get one. Would it demolish County Hall?

      (for readers outside the UK, ULEZ is London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone which, from today, covers the entire Greater London area within the M25 peripheral motorway. Owners of petrol cars pre-2005 and diesel cars pre-2016 must pay £12.50 a day to enter the zone (even if they live inside London and venture out of their street). There is much opposition to the measure, and it is currently a hot news topic.)

  4. Thanks Michael for this wonderful article and set of images. I love the look of these machines. They’re magnificient.
    There were two manufacturers in France I know of. Latil trucks had their engines powered by coal. Another brand was Gazauto which manufactured trucks powered by charcoal engines.
    I have fond memories of steam trains which passed just near our playground which was a disused railway track running just next to the still in use railwayline at the time.

    • Thank you, Jean. One of the areas I definitely didn’t want to get mixed up in, is the question of steam lorries produced in other countries. I presume they were popular in many parts of the world and it’s interesting there were two French contenders. I imaging there must have been similar vehicles produced in the USA, although I didn’t find any references. Maybe some of our readers can add to the discussion.

      Mike

  5. Might mention that the first viable passenger-carrying steam wagon was developed by Richard Trevithick and took to the roads around Redruth in Cornwall in 1801, long before any petrol-engined horseless carriage. Trevithick and his crew were allegedly so delighted with their first road test that they adjourned to the local pub, leaving the vehicle unattended in a stable which after a while caught fire, destroying the vehicle (but fortunately no horses). More trivia: Sentinel steam waggons were also built under licence by Skoda in Czechoslovakia (as was), while Rolls-Royce eventually took over the Sentinel works in Shrewsbury to build large diesel engines, including some used in railway locomotives and military vehicles. And you can drive a steam locomotive ‘in the comfort of your own home’ via the Train Simulator computer sim – great fun and not nearly as hot and sweaty as the real thing!

    • Many thanks, Tony. I did quite a lot of research and discovered that the first viable steam truck was made in the late 1770s in France, but I was aware of Trevithick’s creation as well. I discovered the Skoda connection through the Sentinel Drivers’ Club — and also the large order made for Argentina in the late 1940s. But I had to stop somewhere and decided this article was already long enough. Thanks to your comment, and others, we can discuss the added information here in the comments section.
      Mike

  6. Quite an evocative piece. Your photos demonstrate that these machines are still well-loved.

    All kinds of machines exist in an entire ecology; in this case coal, coal mines. My (ex-pat) colleague’s father worked in them; it wasn’t a healthy occupation. The romantic fogs in Sherlock Holmes stories testify to the effects of the coal economy.

    We’d like to think we’re better off, but I suspect it’s little different now — we’re house bound because smoke blown down from Canadian wildfires makes our air unhealthy.

    Here’s an oddity: your “heady amalgam of coal, hot oil, sulphur carried in a delicious vapour” reminds me of my brother-in-law. He was a US Navy pilot serving in the Vietnam war. Misses the smell o napalm and jet fuel when he’d go on a mission. It seens modern political correctness can’t begin to touch our nostalgic memories of youth!

    • True. Unrestricted burning of coal, including near universal domestic usage, did result in a very unhealthy atmosphere and the smoke combined with fog produced what was known as smog. I can remember as a child going to school in thick “pea-souper” fogs. You could see the soot flecks floating in the air and, of course, we were all breathing this foul combination with predictable results. The Clean Air Act of 1956 was a tremendous success in suppressing the use of coal, particularly for domestic heating, and by the end of the 60s everything had changed. I remember being astounded to see that famous buildings in London, including museums and cathedrals, had not been built with black stone. A vigorous programme of cleaning transformed imposing facades, such as that of the Natural History Museum, and everyone was amazed to see them as they had been when built. Times change… but when people today complain of unclean city air, I can’t help thinking that they don’t know the half of it. Mike

  7. Absolutely wonderful! I love the density of information which really makes the story come alive. And of course the chocolate digestive biscuit of a Flanders and Swann reference!

    • Thanks, Le Chef. I enjoyed researching and writing the article. It all came about because I grabbed a few shots without any real intention of using them. Then, I started looking into Sentinel and discovered a treasure trove of information.

  8. As auto historians know, steam automobiles were tried in the USA in the early part of the 20th century, with many manufacturers entering the market. The convenience, safety, and eventually, low cost of gasoline engines killed off steam.

    What I was not aware of until just researching it is that there was a resurgence of interest in steam cars in the late 1960s, because it was thought that external combustion could be regulated better to reduce emissions.

    I imagine that the invention of the catalytic converter did in those ideas.

    • Thanks, Martin. There were also several steam cars in Britain early in the century. A White steam car takes part every year in the RAC Brighton Run (which commemorates the repeal of the hated “Red Flag” Act in 1896. I think the White may have been an American vehicle. As for the steam “waggon”, I suppose the sheer pulling power for heavy load was the reason it survived as long as it did. With all that rigmarole to get it going and the constant attention when under way, it seems difficult to believe that they were so popular.

    • Well, it’s a thought, but I don’t think so. These old lorries have almost disappeared from public consciousness. I bet many readers were not previously aware that they had been so popular in the first half of the last century.

      • My childhood years were the 50’s and 60’s, and there was one type of steam powered vehicle that was still in fairly common use during those times.

        These were the Tarmac layers and the associated steam rollers that drove backwards and forwards over the newly laid surface.

        Presumably they lasted so long because they were very heavy and ideal for the purpose?

        • I also suspect the characteristics of steam power, constant torque and enormous power made these vehicles ideal for the job at the time. That’s probably it why they lasted longer than the steam wagon which had it’s problems because on frequent t need for fettling and taking on water.

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