Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/226

 of a van, and the marks or address is called out, he is able at once to check the entry on the consignment note and to shout "No. 5," or "No. 6," as the case may be, when the, package is forthwith placed on a hand truck and, accompanied by its consignment note, is wheeled away to the particular arch to which it belongs, and deposited on the stage there, ready for loading into the waggons. Here one of the loading gangs, each of which consists of a checker, a loader, a caller-off, and two porters, take it in hand, and deposit it in a waggon destined for the station to which it is addressed. When the goods are in the waggons, the consignment notes are taken to the shipping office, and the clerk in charge sorts them out to the different clerks whose duty it is to make out the invoices for the various destinations. These clerks enter on the invoices the names and addresses of consignees, the nature and description of the goods, the weight and the charges; and the invoices, if they are ready in time, are handed to the brakeman in charge of the train by which the waggons are despatched; if not ready at the time the train departs, they are sent afterwards by fast passenger trains, so as to arrive at the same time as the goods, or before. The consignment notes, having been marked with a progressive number in such a way as to identify them with the corresponding entries on the invoices, so as to facilitate the tracing of goods which may go astray, are carefully filed for future reference.

The waggons of goods when loaded, sheeted, and labelled, are run out at the further end of the arches, turned on to the hydraulic hoists by means of the turntables and capstans, and emerge on to the upper level, where in a group often long sidings adjoining the North