Then, at all the junctions, sidings, and crossings, pointsmen are stationed, with definite instructions as to the duties to be performed by them. At these places, signals are provided, worked from the station platforms, or from special signal boxes, for the purpose of protecting the stopping or passing trains. When the first railways were opened, the signals were of a very simple kind. The station men gave them with their arms stretched out in different positions; then flags of different colours were used; next fixed signals, with arms or discs of rectangular or triangular shape. These were followed by a complete system of semaphore signals, near and distant, protecting all junctions, sidings, and crossings. When Government inspectors were first appointed by the Board of Trade to examine and report upon the working of railways, they were alarmed by the number of trains following each other at some stations, in what then seemed to be a very rapid succession. A passage from a Report written in 1840 by Sir Frederick Smith, as to the traffic at “Taylor’s Junction,” on the York and North Midland Railway, contrasts curiously with the railway life and activity of the present day:—“Here,” wrote the alarmed Inspector, “the passenger trains from York as well as Leeds and Selby, meet four times a day. No less than 23 passenger-trains stop at or pass this station in the 21 hours—an amount of traffic requiring not only the utmost perfect arrangements on the part of the management, but the utmost vigilance and energy in the servants of the Company employed at this place.” Contrast this with the state of things now. On the Metropolitan Line, 667 trains pass a given point in one direction or the other during the eighteen hours of the working day, or an average of 36 trains an hour. At the Cannon Street Station of the South-Eastern Railway, 627 trains pass in and out daily, many of them crossing each other’s tracks under the protection of the station-signals. Forty-five trains run in and out between 9 and 10 A.M., and an equal number between 4 and 5 P.M. Again, at the Clapham Junction, near London, about 700 trains pass or stop daily; and though to the casual observer the succession of trains coming and going, running and stopping, coupling and shunting, appears a scene of inextricable confusion and danger, the whole is clearly intelligible to the signalmen in their boxes, who work the trains in and out with extraordinary precision and regularity.