Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/161

 which sets the hydraulic ram in motion. Soon we hear the solid teak blocks begin to groan as they are forced into the tyre, and with a few loud thumps they are driven home, when the press is opened, and the wood-centre is seen to be as compact as if it were fashioned out of one piece of timber. Nothing remains but to add the retaining ring and boss plates; another hydraulic press forces the wheel and its fellow on to the axle and keys them up; and one more pair of wheels is added to the many thousands that are ceaselessly rushing to and fro upon the iron highway.

Making a tour of the premises, we shall observe that there are special shops and rooms for almost every portion of the work which has to be carried en. Here for instance, is a shop devoted to the fine cabinet work required for the internal fitting and decoration of the carriages, and close at hand is a room where a staff of girls is employed in French polishing. The body shop, paint shop, and drying rooms, we have already seen; but here is a carpenters' shop, where furniture, ticket-cases, barrows, and similar articles are made; a smithy, where brawny workmen are wielding the heavy sledge-hammers, and fashioning all kinds of intricate ironwork; a spring makers shop; brass and iron foundries, where casting is going on, and the molten metal is spurting from the cupola furnaces; a lamp shop, with its deafening sound of the ceaseless tapping of tinmen's hammers, and rooms where women are busily engaged in cutting out and making up the trimmings and linings of the carriages; while everywhere we cannot fail to be struck by the ingenious mechanical appliances which mimimise the labour, and secure uniformity in the work, although these are too numerous and complicated to be described.