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
As soon as the two agents, at their respective receiving-sheds, have
loaded their trucks, and have securely covered them with water-proof
and fire-proof tarpaulins, they turn them out, labelled, into the
open air, from which moment they are considered to be in the hands of
the Company’s superintendent of the goods-department. Accordingly,
under his direction, they are immediately drawn by horses first over
a weighbridge to receive their weigh-bills, and thence to a series
of ten turn-tables, by which they are scattered among thirteen
sets of rails, where they are marshalled into trains for their
respective destinations. In this operation it is alarming to see the
superintendent’s horses dragging the various luggage-vans, for not
only are the rails as well as the pavement between them exceedingly
slippery, but as the carriages have no shafts, the poor horse has not
power to stop his load, and accordingly affixed to it by his traces
he trots away before it, until it appears as if he must inevitably be
smashed to a sandwich between it and the carriage at rest which he is
approaching; however, just before the collision between the buffers
of each vehicle takes place, the dull-looking animal jumps aside, and
very dexterously saves himself from annihilation. The luggage-trains
thus formed are usually composed of 35, but sometimes of 70 or 90
waggons, weighing when empty about three tons each, and averaging
when laden about six tons. At the rear of each of these trains there
sits a guard. The Company’s goods-waggons of all descriptions amount
in number to 6236.
_Engine Stable and Cattle Wharf._
In order to prevent the locomotive engines which draw these
luggage-trains from crossing, or otherwise perilling the main
passenger-line at Camden Station, there has been constructed an
immense rotunda, 160 feet in diameter, lighted from the top by plates
of glass nine feet in length by half an inch thick, and capable of
containing twenty-four of the largest-class engines. In the centre of
this great brick building there is a turn-table 40 feet in diameter,
from whence the engines radiate to their twenty-four stalls, which
on a large scale much resemble those constructed in a stable for
hunters. The majority of these locomotives are capable of drawing 600
tons at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Each, when supplied with
coke and water, with steam up ready for its journey, weighs about 50
tons. At the entrance of this building there is a pit into which,
after their journey, they may drop their fire, and between the rails
in each of the twenty-four stalls we observed a smaller pit to enable
artificers to work beneath any engine that may require reparation.
The drivers of these huge locomotives, after every journey, inspect
and report in a book, as in the passenger-trains, any repairs that
may be required, and the engines are thoroughly cleaned every time
they come in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account