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Sentinel Railcar at Hitchin

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 8:19 pm
by smudger
Saw this interesting photo here:

http://gngen.fotopic.net/p43342466.html

Anyone know it's name? Can't make it out from the photo. Was this only a trial or did these often work out from Hitchin? And which line would they have worked?

Cheers,

Alan

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 8:58 pm
by Bullhead
Only a rough guess based on the number of characters which seem to be visible in the photo and a comparison with http://www.lner.info/locos/Railcar/sentinel.shtml, I think it's possibly "Royal Charlotte" or "Royal Sovereign".

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 9:15 pm
by R. pike
Have just spoken to Mr Camfield and he says Trafalgar. I'm not totally convinced..

Re: Sentinel Railcar at Hitchin

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 9:22 pm
by Bill Bedford
smudger wrote:Saw this interesting photo here:

http://gngen.fotopic.net/p43342466.html

Anyone know it's name? Can't make it out from the photo. Was this only a trial or did these often work out from Hitchin? And which line would they have worked?
According to 10B Sentinels that were allocated to Hitchin were Waterloo, Rising Sun and Royal Forrester

Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 9:32 pm
by Bullhead
To my imperfect eye, the photo definitely shows a name composed of two separate words - so Royal Forrester is perhaps the most likely candidate?

Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 4:06 am
by Malcolm
I have checked the details against a photo I have, counted the letters and characters, and enhancement with Adobe has convinced me it is Royal Forrester.

Malcolm

Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 7:25 am
by hq1hitchin
Think they worked the Hertford service, principally, with other little jobs to Biggleswade and Letchworth on a Saturday, that kind of thing. Only main line work they ever had was as a workmans train, literally, early on in WW2 when one of the last used to do a daily Hitchin - Connington service conveying p.way men building the new yard there. Great shame none of the Sentinels survived although I think there was an Egyptian one at Quainton Road recently, a 3 car, if I remember rightly. At Hitchin, they used always refer to 'Bang Up' when talking about steam railcars of any type although I think this was a Clayton?