Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/215

 In practice it is found that in shunting by gravitation, no two trucks run exactly alike, some railway companies and private owners keeping their stock in better order than others, and much depending upon the precise condition of the tyres and axle-boxes, the length of the wheel base, the nature of the load, and the description of brake gear employed. Strong winds also affect the running, especially of covered vans lightly loaded; severe frost offers an impediment, while, on the other hand, warm and moist weather renders the rails slippery, and heavy concentrated loads on a narrow wheel base will often run too freely; but there are simple appliances which are found in practice easily to overcome all these difficulties. The shunters, during the day-time, use various recognised gestures to indicate in advance to one another the numbers chalked on the trucks passing down the incline, and during the night, similar information is communicated by the movement of the coloured lenses of their hand-lamps.

During the year 1887, 518,000 loaded waggons were passed through these sidings, in addition to 108,000 empty waggons, making a total (exclusive of special trains) of 626,000 waggons, or a daily average of about 2,000, equal to fifty average trains. There are eighty-three men employed to work the sidings, including nine foremen and inspectors. The various foremen's offices are connected by telephone circuits, and, finally, the whole of the sidings are lighted by lofty and powerful lamps of the Siemen's type, in addition to smaller lamps fixed near each pair of points.

One special advantage claimed by its inventor for this system of marshalling waggons, is that it can be