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 out in any order in which they are required to be marshalled in the trains.

At certain important places throughout the country, as at Shildon, on the North-Eastern Railway; at Chaddesden, near Derby, and at Toton, near Trent, on the Midland Railway; and at Blaydon, near Newcastle, on the North-Eastern, and elsewhere, schemes of marshalling sidings of elaborate construction and great extent have been laid down, and these have in each case their own distinctive features, but they have for the most part been devised to meet the special circumstances of a particular traffic or locality, and probably it is not necessary to enter into a detailed description of them. The most successful experiment which has been tried upon the London and North- Western Railway, and possibly also the most successful in the kingdom, whether with regard to efficiency or economy, has been an ingenious plan devised by Mr. Harry Footner, M.I.C.E., one of the Company's principal engineers, for marshalling the waggons in district and station order by one operation, and by means of gravitation. This plan has been put in operation on an extensive scale at Edge Hill, near Liverpool, and as it is one which would be applicable to any large station or junction where a great number of waggons required to be sorted and marshalled, and where a suitable gradient either naturally existed, or could be easily obtained, a description of the method in which the work is carried on and the results obtained, may not be without value.

Edge Hill, as is no doubt well known, is a place on the outskirts of Liverpool, and is situated on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, was the first railway constructed by George Stephenson, nearly sixty years ago. At