Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/223

 the sending station is applied to for a copy of the invoice, and the goods which remain on hand are dealt with on its arrival. A similar course is adopted in the case of goods found in a waggon without there being any corresponding entry on the invoice.

When the invoice arrives, but not the goods, which usually results either from the waggons having been wrongly labelled or having missed their proper train, the telegraph is set to work to ascertain their whereabouts, and the invoices are held over until the goods make their appearance.

The most troublesome errors arise from the porters misunderstanding- the directions given by the checkers, and wheeling goods to a wrong section on the platform. In a case of this kind, when the delivery sheet for that section arrives from the office, it, of course, contains no entry of this particular package, and it is consequently left on the bank. On the other hand, the checker for the section to which it should have been taken finds he is short of it, and makes a remark to that effect on the sheet which he passes back to his foreman, and the latter employs every means in his power to discover the whereabouts of the missing package. Failing to do so, he calls in the services of two men, who are called "searchers," and are employed upon this duty all day, but if their efforts prove fruitless there is nothing for it but to wait until the "bank list" is taken, that is, when at four o'clock each afternoon a complete list is made of all goods remaining on the bank after the morning's deliveries, by means of which most errors can be rectified.

The "down," or outward traffic is dealt with in the arches before described, the "runs" or lines of rails