Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/222

 numbers marked against the entries. Next, the carmen's delivery sheets are passed out to the platform, and the delivery foreman directs the loading of the vans from the different sections on the bank, the goods being carefully checked against the entries on the delivery sheets as they are placed in the vans. Finally, the cartage department take possession of both vans and delivery sheets, the vans are horsed and started away to their respective destinations, all the processes being carried out with the utmost care, but at the same time, with the greatest rapidity.

There are, however, many contingencies which arise in the working of the traffic, and must be promptly met, in order to prevent delays occurring, and the chief of these may be classed under four heads, as follows:—(1) Goods arriving without invoice; (2) discrepancies between the invoice and the goods actually received in the waggons; (3) invoices arriving without the goods; and, (4) goods accidentally trucked to the wrong position on the platform.

If the waggon arrives without invoice it is unloaded in its turn, an account of the goods contained in it is entered on a special form provided for the purpose, and, where the addresses of the consignees appear on the goods, they are trucked away to their proper position on the platform, the number of the section being marked on the form by the checker. The form is then passed into the delivery office, and, as far as possible, delivery sheets are made out from it in the same way as if it were the missing invoice. Such goods as are found in the waggon merely under mark and not addressed, are taken to a particular position on the platform to wait further orders on the arrival of the invoice. Meanwhile