Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/218

 working certain of the goods dep6ts on the London and North-Western Railway, the reader will be able to gather a fair idea of the nature of the operations to be carried on in working a large merchandise traffic, and of the arrangements which, with more or less variation, are adopted at the most important goods stations.

A goods station which possesses certain features of interest, chiefly on account of its somewhat unique mode of construction, is Broad Street, which is the City Depot of the London and North-Western Company, in London. The North London Railway, which is connected with the North-Western, passes round the Northern suburbs of London to Dalston Junction, where it trends almost due South to its passenger terminus at Broad Street, in the very heart of the City. Land in the City of London being, of course, extremely valuable, the line is carried during the latter part of its course by means of bridges and viaducts at a high elevation, in some cases over the tops of the houses, and it thus reaches its terminus at a point considerably above the level of the surrounding thoroughfares, the passenger station having accordingly been built on arches. Advantage has been taken of this fact to enable the London and North-Western Company to provide themselves with an extensive goods station without incurring the enormous expense of taking land for the purpose in the busiest part of the City, and the goods traffic is, as a matter of fact, conducted in the arches under the passenger station, the waggons of goods being transferred one by one from the upper to the lower level and vice versâ, by means of powerful hydraulic lifts. All along the front of these arches, which are fourteen in number, and, including