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
We observed also at work 4 steam hay-cutters, which cut 200 trusses
in four hours, and 1 steam hay-cleaner. The above machines are worked
simultaneously by an engine of 16-horse power, which also raises from
an Artesian well, 380 feet deep, water, which is given warm to 222
horses in adjoining stables. These horses are all named, and branded
with a number on their hoofs.
In the general receiving-shed of Messrs. Chaplin and Horne there are
also a series of cranes, with large stables full of horses that work
about twelve hours a-day; the “Weights of Goods allowed to be taken
by them in each Vehicle” being as follows:--
_From Camden._
Tons. Cwts. Tons. Cwts.
4 Horses 5 0 Not to exceed 6 0 waggons.
3 Do. 4 0 Do. 4 10 vans.
2 Do. 3 0 Do. 3 5 do.
1 Do. 1 10 Do. 1 15 carts.
By the very great powers committed by the Company to their two
agents, 50 waggon-loads of merchandise, collected and brought by
spring-waggons to Camden Station, have often, within two hours, been
despatched by the superintendent to the manufacturing districts.
During the day, as fast as the spring-waggons arrive their contents
are unloaded, and either left on the covered platform of the
building or ranged around the walls in large compartments, labelled
“Glasgow,” “Birmingham,” “Manchester,” “Leicester,” “Nottingham,”
“Coventry,” &c.; and as on the great square of Valetta at Malta one
sees congregated the costumes of almost every merchant upon earth, so
do these receiving-sheds display goods and chattels of almost every
description. Here lies a waggon-load of beer from Chester,--there
another of sugar-loaves, in blue paper, for Northampton,--of
groceries for Buckingham,--cheeses, millinery, and gas-pipes for
Peterborough,--a vanload of empty hosiery skips (baskets) to return
to Leicester,--empties for Glasgow,--filberts for Birmingham, &c.:
and as the goods are coming in as fast as they are going out, the
colours of this kaleidoscopic scene are constantly changing. Indeed,
during the short time we were ruminating on the strange chance-medley
of objects before us, fourteen truck-loads of goods were unladen, and
eight spring-waggons loaded and despatched.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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