This magnificent four-wheeler Sentinel steam waggon in 1:4 scale was shown by G Smith at the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition in 2010. One of the truly stunning exhibits that makes this such a popular event. The model Sentinel is very typical of a successful type of road steam vehicle built in the early decades of the 20th Century.

The Sentinel business began life in Glasgow around 1875, producing a 5-ton vertical boilered vehicle with a two cylinder undertype engine and chain drive. The Glasgow company was Alley & MacLellan, and they set up a new company in 1915, the Sentinel Waggon Works Ltd in Shrewsbury. It went on to dominate the steam wagon, or ‘waggon’ for the Sentinal, market along with Foden.

In 1934 Sentinel launched a new and advanced steamer - the S type which had a single-acting 4-cylinder underfloor engine with longitudinal crankshaft and an overhead worm-drive axle. Some 3,750 Sentinel Standards were produced in the years that followed, the biggest selling steam lorry ever. It was lighter and featured a modernized driver's cab with a set-back boiler and was available in four, six and eight-wheel form, designated S4, S6 and S8. In spite of its sophisticated design, however, it could not compete with contemporary diesel trucks and was phased out in the late 1930s apart from about 100 S type vehicles exported to Argentina as late as 1950,