58 Bowie Ave., Toronto, Canada
I was pleased to see a picture of a Sentinal steam wagons
picture in a recent Iron-Men Album. What a pity we didn’t get a
bigger picture also one from the side view. There must be hundreds
of pictures of these different classes of steam wagons. By the way,
these are called and spelled ‘steam wagons’ by the Sentinal
the Fosters, The Clayton, The Manns wagon of Leeds which was a
great wagon for handling.
I used to deliver 1750 building bricks each load and do five
load a day. My mate and I wheeled them out of the hot kilns by
50’s on a barrow. How did we count? As we brought them out we
threw a brick down on the ground. The bricks were hot and we had
pieces of inner tube tires cut to fit over the front part of our
fingers and thumbs. We started for the yard at 6 A.M. and we
hadn’t time to stop for a bite to eat and drink until after 6
or 7 o’clock at night, but it was fun and interesting.
I also drove a threshing set at a small village outside of
Nottingham. The employer’s name was W. Forman & Son,
Branston, Lincolnshire, England. The man who had the Manns wagon
was Preston & Son, Wadleybridge, Sheffield, England.
During the latter part of the first world war the son drove a
Foster engine, which was a very good engine with drum, 22 ft.,
straw jack and cut box. After the war I drove various wagons,
namely the Clayton, Sentinel and Foden and then finished up on a
Mann wagon. The Mann wagon had the weight distributed very good and
the engine had three speeds. The man in Sheffield, Yorkshire,
England had a compound engine. I drove one, the son drove the new
one and the old man kept one in the yard in case one of us broke
down. I only had one near thing with the Manns wagon. I was going
up hill on low gear when my differential gear broke on the rear
axle. I was quick to screw the brake as we started to run backwards
and slowed the wagon and load enough for my mate to throw a chock
under the wheels. We used to carry one hanging on the back by a
hook. We worked all night and started in the morning as usual with
the differential repaired and only lost two loads as we didn’t
sleep for 48 hours. Another time I was driving a Sentinel and it
had snowed. I had been to Manchester from Sheffield to get a load
of bottled stout when the sun came out and I took the heavy chains
we used off the wheels to make faster time. The road was dry in the
middle but we got to a road where we used to detour to miss a big
hill, which was closed, thinking it would be dry we hit where the
children were sleighing down the hill but I couldn’t stop. My
mate jumped off. The boiler had 250 lbs. of steam! I threw the
brake and swung round and round four times, hitting the wall each
time and best of all, missing the children. One child was in a baby
carriage being pushed by her sister. While swinging around I saw an
opening in a cutting in the side of the hill and gave the Sentinel
steam and it shot up the hill into the bank. Not a bottle broke!
The road was so bad that cars where coming down backwards and
piling into the bank. Damage to my steamer was 250 pounds. I had
one or two more adventures with narrow squeaks but never gave
up.
