Stokers and pokers : $b or, The London and North-Western Railway, the electric telegraph, and the railway clearing-houseHead, Francis Bond, Sir
History
Stokers and pokers : $b or, The London and North-Western Railway, the electric telegraph, and the railway clearing-house
Head, Francis Bond, Sir
London and North-Western Railway; Railway Clearing House (London, England); Telegraph -- Great Britain
When every person has succeeded in liberating himself or herself from
the train, it is amusing to observe how cleverly, from long practice,
the Company’s porters understood the apparent confusion which exists.
To people wishing to embrace their friends--to gentlemen and servants
darting in various directions straight across the platform to secure
a cab or in search of private carriages--they offer no assistance
whatever, well knowing that none is required. But to every passenger
whom they perceive to be either restlessly moving backwards and
forwards, or standing still, looking upwards in despair, they civilly
say “_This way, Sir!_” “_Here it is, Ma’am!_”--and thus, knowing
what they want before they ask, they conduct them either to the
particular carriage on whose roof their baggage has been placed, or
to the luggage-van in front of the train, from which it has already
been unloaded on to the platform; and thus, in a very few minutes
after the convulsive shaking of hands and the feverish distribution
of baggage have subdivided, all the cabs and carriages have radiated
away--the parti-coloured omnibuses have followed them--even the
horses, which in different clothing have been disembarked, have
been led or ridden away--and, the foot-passengers having also
disappeared, the long platform of the incoming train of the Euston
Station remains once more solely occupied by one or two servants of
the Company, hemmed in by a new line of expectant cabs and omnibuses.
Indeed, at various periods of the day, a very few minutes only
elapse before, at the instigation of compressed air, the faithful
signal-bell is again heard hysterically announcing the arrival of
another train at Camden Station.
In a clear winter’s night the arrival of an up-train at the platform
before us forms a very interesting picture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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