Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/238

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
200
AN ENGLISH RAILWAY.

have a line on each side. There is also a stage running transversely along one end of the building, to which access is given by a roadway for carts. To facilitate the handling of the heavy goods, there are in all twenty-four cranes, each carrying thirty cwt., four of which are power cranes, and the rest are worked by hand. The upper floor is devoted to storage purposes, and to enable grain to be conveniently delivered from this storey, slides are provided, down which the sacks can be passed to the ground floor; there are also a number of shoots for transferring loose grain from sack to sack. Grain in sacks can be hoisted direct from the waggons or carts below to the upper storey by means of cranes, but if required to be stored in bulk, it is lifted by crane to a gangway, or gallery, erected over the upper storey, and supported on the principals of the building, and then is shot out of the sacks into bins below, through shoots provided for the purpose.

Under the stages of the warehouse are capacious cellars for the storage of ale, bacon, and such commodities, which can be lifted or lowered direct between the cellars and the carts, or railway waggons, by means of suitable cranes.

Waggons containing goods arriving by train for delivery in the town, are placed on the outer line of rails, next to one or the other of the side stages, nearest the walls, and as carts can approach either of these from the side of the warehouse, where they stand sheltered by a projecting awning, the goods can be transferred by the cranes direct from waggon to cart, or light goods can be handed across the platform. Other town goods can be unloaded in the second line of rails on either side, and trucked to the platform at the end of the warehouse