Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/232

 With regard to import traffic, as soon as the vessel is berthed alongside the quay, the invoices are passed to a checker, who, for the guidance of the men on the platform, first makes out a "card," or list, of the urgent, or "perishable," traffic, showing the loads which have to be made up for different destinations, so that as the goods are landed from the boat, the ganger in charge of the men on the platform is enabled to direct the loading into waggons. By the time the urgent, or perishable, traffic has been dealt with, the checker has prepared another "loading-card" for the general cargo, and thus the discharging and loading-up of the goods is enabled to proceed without interruption, until the whole have been despatched.

Ireland being to so large an extent an agricultural country, an important feature in her exports to England is live stock, and for the transfer of this from the vessels to the waggons at Holyhead, the arrangements are very complete. There is accommodation for the unloading of the animals from the vessels at any height of the tide all along the front of the import warehouses, and this operation can be carried on at the same time as the unloading of parcels and the perishable goods traffic from the same boats, while, close at hand, is a covered pen set apart for the reception of lame and distressed animals who are unfit to walk to the cattle yard, such animals being loaded up and taken by an engine to the yard. The animals who are fit to walk are conducted by a convenient roadway to the yard, which contains covered accommodation for upwards of 180 cattle, 800 pigs, and fifteen horses, together with open pens capable of holding 230 head of stock. There are also pens erected alongside a siding, upon which twelve waggons can be placed in position