Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/110

 or weakness. A man can stand at one end of a line of telegraph, hundreds of miles in length, and, by exchanging signals with the other end, may satisfy himself that the entire circuit is in efficient: working order. Thus the work of inspection and maintenance of the extensive system of telegraphs in operation on the London and North-Western Railway is carried on by nine inspectors, three sub-inspectors, and forty-eight "linemen." The line is divided for maintenance purposes into nine sections, each of which is in charge of an inspector; and the first daily duty of each inspector is, at a stated time previous to 8.0 a.m., to test all the more important circuits under his charge, and ascertain if they are intact and working efficiently, and the results of this inspection are telegraphed at once to the office of the chief telegraph superintendent, in Manchester, so that that officer has before him, by 9.0 a.m. each day, a condensed report of the exact state of the telegraphic communications over the entire system. By these means it is known where the services of the linemen are required, and some of them are told off to execute necessary repairs, while others undertake the duties of cleaning apparatus, and refreshing batteries. As a general rule, the batteries are cleaned, or refreshed, at fixed intervals varying from ten days to a month, according to the amount of work they have to perform; but it is the duty of any operator who perceives, by the failure or weakness of the indications, that his battery power shows signs of exhaustion at once to intimate the fact to the inspector in charge of the district, and to report any neglect or delay in attending to it to the chief telegraph superintendent.

Electricians are said to be somewhat divided in