The new Sentinal motor wagon recently purchased by Messrs Ross & Glendining for hill work. Here the wagon has a load of 28 bales, weighing 5 tons 12 cwt, climbing a hill with a grade of one in nine.
Photograph ex Otago Witness of 13 May 1908
Sad story of motor wagon
From the Otago Daily Times of Monday19 May 2008The photograph of the Ross and Glendining 1908 Sentinel motor waggon (ODT, 100 years ago, 13.5.08) recalled to my mind an expedition I took part in over 30 years ago in the Owaka Valley when the remains of this vehicle were recovered from a creek bed.
R&G had purchased the vehicle to give a quicker service from Otago Harbour to its woollen mill in Kaikorai Valley than horsedrawn wagons could provide. It was also used to transport wool from Burnside to the mill, but it did too much damage to the poorly formed gravel road in those days and this route was abandoned.
I believe R&G had a similar vehicle of another make but both trucks, with their iron-shod wheels, proved unsatisfactory and ran for only a short period.
The Sentinel was sold to a sawmill in the Catlins but once again it was found wanting on the soft and damp bush roads, where its front wheels ploughed into the road surface, leading to it regularly becoming bogged. The boiler, water tank and cab were abandoned at the sawmill site near Tawanui, while the chassis became a manure dump on a farm in the Owaka Valley. The salvaged remains were later acquired by a steam enthusiast at Kennington, near Invercargill. The steam engine had been used to power a winch "somewhere in the bush" and disappeared, but the other remains probably still exist in Southland.
O. H. Laytham
Wakari
Wakari