GOODS DEPARTMENT.
The duties of this department, which forms one of the most important
establishments at Camden Station, may very briefly be elucidated.
It appears from returns lying before us, that during the six months
ending the 26th of August last there entered and departed from Camden
Station alone 73,732 railway waggon-loads of goods! Now in the
annals of political economy there can perhaps scarcely exist a more
striking exemplification of the extraordinary extent to which the
latent resources of a great country may be developed by diminishing
the friction, or, without metaphor, by lowering the tolls of its
goods-traffic, than the fact that, notwithstanding the enormous
amount thus conveyed along the London and North Western rails, the
quantity carried along the Grand Junction Canal, which meanders
alongside its powerful antagonist, instead of having been drained,
as might have been expected, to zero, has, from the opening of the
railway in 1836 up to the present period, actually increased as
follows:--
Tons.
Average amount of goods annually moved on the Grand
Junction Canal during the three years prior to the
opening of the London and Birmingham Railway in
1836 756,894
Average amount of ditto annually moved during the
twelve years subsequent to 1836 1,039,333
Amount moved in 1847 1,163,466
Besides the innumerable arrangements necessary for the conveyance
along their rails of the number of waggon-loads of goods we have
stated, the Company undertake the vexatious and intricate business
of collecting and delivering these goods from and to all parts of
London, as also throughout the various towns on their line, excepting
Liverpool, where the collection and delivery of goods is otherwise
arranged. The number of letters on business received by the branch of
this department at Camden Station only, averages 300 per day.
For the collection, loading, unloading, and delivery of a certain
portion of the merchandise conveyed by the Company on their rails,
the Board of Directors have, we think with great prudence, availed
themselves of the practical knowledge and experience of Messrs.
Pickford and of Messrs. Chaplin and Horne, whom they have engaged
as their agents at Camden Station--the Company’s superintendent
there marshalling and despatching all luggage-trains, arranging the
signals, and making out the weigh-bills, &c. The undertaking is
one of enormous magnitude; for besides immense cargoes of goods in
large packages, an inconceivable number of small parcels are sent
from Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, &c. to numberless little
retail shopkeepers in London, who are constantly requiring, say a
few saucepans, kettles, cutlery, &c.; and when it is considered that
for the collection, conveyance, and delivery of most of these light
parcels 1_s._ only is charged, and, moreover, that for the conveyance
of a small parcel by the Company’s goods-trains from say Watford to
Camden Station, to be there unloaded into store, thence reloaded into
and transported by a spring waggon to almost any street and house in
London, or to the terminus of any railway-station to which it may be
addressed, the charge is only 6_d._, it is evident that a great deal
of attention and skill are necessary to squeeze a profit from charges
which competition has reduced to so low a figure.
At, and for some time after, the commencement of railway traffic,
it was considered dangerous to convey goods by night. They are now,
however, despatched from Birmingham at 8·45 P.M., to arrive at Camden
Station at 3½ in the morning. Goods from London are despatched at 9
in the evening, at midnight, at 12½, at ¼ before 1, at 3, and at 5
in the morning. In the day they are despatched at 12·40, at 1·15,
at 2·6, and at 6½; and such regularity is attained, that packs
of cotton, linen, and woollen goods from Manchester are usually
delivered in London almost with the regularity of letters. An immense
quantity of fish from Billingsgate, and occasionally as much as
20 tons of fruit from Covent Garden market, are injected into the
country by the midday train: indeed the London wholesale dealers
in these articles do not now fear receiving too great a supply,
as, whatever may be their surplus, the railway is ready to carry
it off to the manufacturing districts--Manchester alone swallowing
almost any quantity; besides which, large quantities of fruit are
conveyed by rail as far as Glasgow. Many tons of meat in hampers,
and oftentimes a flock of a hundred dead sheep, wrapped up only in
cloths, are also despatched from the country to the London market.
Without tiring our readers with minute details, the following is a
rough outline of the mode in which the goods-traffic is conducted.
As soon as an up luggage-train arrives at Camden Station, its loaded
waggons of merchandise, which are placed under the care of the
Goods-department Superintendent as soon as they arrive, are, under
his directions, drawn by horses along a variety of branch-rails to
a certain point, where they are left by the superintendent in the
open air, from which moment Messrs. Pickford and Messrs. Chaplin and
Horne--to whom the different waggons are respectively addressed, and
between whom a wholesome competition exists, highly advantageous to
the public--are held responsible by the Company for fire or accident
of any sort; in short, for their safe delivery. The waggons thus
deposited by the superintendent, solely under the canopy of heaven,
are instantly approached by drivers and horses belonging to the two
competing agents, who with great cleverness, by repeatedly twisting
them on turn-tables, and then by drawing them along an apparent
labyrinth of rails, conduct each species of goods to its own store,
where, by experienced porters, it is immediately unloaded and
despatched by spring waggons to its destination.
As regards the down-trade, the business transacted in this
department, although apparently complicated, is very admirably
arranged. The spring waggons and carts of the Company’s agents, like
bees in search of honey, with extraordinary intelligence migrate
in all directions to the various localities of the metropolis in
search, piecemeal, of that enormous traffic, large and small, which
by every diurnal pulsation of the heart of London is projected
into our manufacturing districts, which in return send back to
the metropolis very nearly the same amount. Every waggon-load of
merchandise thus obtained, as well as every boat-load of goods (for
the Company have also at Camden Station a branch water-communication
leading into the Regent’s Canal), is either carted at once to the
particular storehouse to which it belongs, to be thence reloaded into
railway vans, or it is brought to “_The General Receiving Shed_”
either of Messrs. Pickford, or of Messrs. Chaplin and Horne; and to
prevent mistakes, all invoice-forms and truck-labels for the former
firm are printed in black, those for the latter in red. In these
enormous receptacles goods “_coming in_” are arranged on one side,
those “_going out_” on the other. In Messrs. Pickford’s receiving
shed, which is 300 feet in length by 217 in breadth, there are in
operation, for the purpose of rapidly loading and unloading goods--
24 steam-cranes,
21 wooden cranes,
1 steam-doller or lift,
1 travelling-crane on the roof,
1 steam-capstan for hauling trucks along rails to the various
loading bays.
We observed also at work 4 steam hay-cutters, which cut 200 trusses
in four hours, and 1 steam hay-cleaner. The above machines are worked
simultaneously by an engine of 16-horse power, which also raises from
an Artesian well, 380 feet deep, water, which is given warm to 222
horses in adjoining stables. These horses are all named, and branded
with a number on their hoofs.
In the general receiving-shed of Messrs. Chaplin and Horne there are
also a series of cranes, with large stables full of horses that work
about twelve hours a-day; the “Weights of Goods allowed to be taken
by them in each Vehicle” being as follows:--
_From Camden._
Tons. Cwts. Tons. Cwts.
4 Horses 5 0 Not to exceed 6 0 waggons.
3 Do. 4 0 Do. 4 10 vans.
2 Do. 3 0 Do. 3 5 do.
1 Do. 1 10 Do. 1 15 carts.
By the very great powers committed by the Company to their two
agents, 50 waggon-loads of merchandise, collected and brought by
spring-waggons to Camden Station, have often, within two hours, been
despatched by the superintendent to the manufacturing districts.
During the day, as fast as the spring-waggons arrive their contents
are unloaded, and either left on the covered platform of the
building or ranged around the walls in large compartments, labelled
“Glasgow,” “Birmingham,” “Manchester,” “Leicester,” “Nottingham,”
“Coventry,” &c.; and as on the great square of Valetta at Malta one
sees congregated the costumes of almost every merchant upon earth, so
do these receiving-sheds display goods and chattels of almost every
description. Here lies a waggon-load of beer from Chester,--there
another of sugar-loaves, in blue paper, for Northampton,--of
groceries for Buckingham,--cheeses, millinery, and gas-pipes for
Peterborough,--a vanload of empty hosiery skips (baskets) to return
to Leicester,--empties for Glasgow,--filberts for Birmingham, &c.:
and as the goods are coming in as fast as they are going out, the
colours of this kaleidoscopic scene are constantly changing. Indeed,
during the short time we were ruminating on the strange chance-medley
of objects before us, fourteen truck-loads of goods were unladen, and
eight spring-waggons loaded and despatched.
The amount of business transacted in each of these great
receiving-sheds every evening, from seven till about ten o’clock, is
quite astonishing. On Messrs. Pickford’s great elevated platform,
which at that time is laden with goods of all descriptions, several
clerks, each protected by a sort of rough arbour of iron rods, and
lighted by gas, are seen, in various localities, sitting before
little desks, towards which porters from all directions are wheeling,
on trucks, different articles which have just been unloaded from
a series of spring-vans, the bottoms of which are nearly on a
level with the platform. The drivers of these carriages, entering
the building at a large gate, twist, turn, and then back their
horses with a dexterity which an unpractised person would think it
impossible for men and horses to attain: “_Now then!_” and “_All
right!_” being almost the only vociferations to be heard. As fast as
the goods can be unladen from the spring-waggons to the platform, a
porter lustily calls out the address on each bale or parcel, which is
actively registered by a clerk. These invoices are then briskly sent
across to the other side of the platform, in order that each article
enumerated therein, when reloaded--as it almost immediately is, into
railway waggons--may be ticketed off, to ascertain whether every
package taken in at the receiving side of the platform has _bonâ
fide_ been safely despatched from the other.
Until the visitor to this extraordinary nocturnal scene has had some
time first to recover his composure, and then to observe, analyse,
and reflect on the various arrangements simultaneously in operation
before him, the picture altogether is really astounding. For from
one side of the platform a set of active porters are centripedally
wheeling from different spring-waggons innumerable packages to
the recording clerks, as eagerly as from these clerks (whose duty
it is to record the weight of every article, and to affix to it
the Company’s printed charge for conveyance to its address) other
porters, equally active, are centrifugally wheeling other packages
to various railway vans, which, as fast as they can be filled, are
drawn away from the despatching side of the platform, and immediately
replaced by empty ones. One set of porters are wheeling to a
recording clerk a waggon-load of raw silk, valued at 9000_l._, from
China, which, _viâ_ the South-Western Railway, has just arrived from
Southampton to go to Macclesfield to be manufactured; another set,
Russia tallow, in casks; others, draperies; another set, yarns for
Gloucester; one porter has on his truck a very small but heavy load
of iron or lead; another, with comparative ease, is wheeling through
the crowd a huge wool-bag, large enough to contain, if properly
packed, a special jury. Here comes a truck of mustard, in small
casks, followed by another full of coffee; there goes a barrow-load
of drugs--preceding a cask of spirits, which, to prevent fraud, has
just been weighed, tapped, gauged, and sampled; also several trucks
full of household furniture; the family warming-pan being tacked
round the body of the eight-day clock, &c. This extraordinary whirl
of business, set to music by the various noises proceeding from the
working of the steam-cranes, steam-doller, steam-capstan, common
cranes, and other machinery above the platform--from the arrival,
turning, backing, and departure of spring-waggons beneath it--from
the rumbling of porters’ trucks crossing the platform, as also of
the railway vans as, laden with goods, they are successively rolled
away--forms altogether, we repeat, a scene which, though rarely
visited, is astounding to witness, and which, we are sensible, we
have but very faintly described.
But, besides the amount of business above mentioned daily transacted
in each of the agents’ great “receiving-sheds,” there are nine other
sheds, in which, throughout the day, and especially at night, the
same process on a smaller scale is going on. Close to these stores
there is also a water-dock for iron and heavy goods to be shipped
for the Thames. The carting establishments of Messrs. Pickford and
Chaplin for the collection and delivery of their share only of the
goods-traffic--for the Company have establishments of their own for
loading and unloading at every station except London--would appear to
any foreigner unacquainted with the modest and unassuming powers with
which the mercantile business of England is quietly transacted, to be
incomprehensible and almost incredible. For instance--
Messrs. Pickford’s establishment, on account of the London and
North-Western Railway, is as follows:--
Clerks. Porters. Horses. Vans. Waggons. Drays.
234 538 396 82 57 25
The weights carted by Messrs. Pickford, on account of the Company,
for the year ending the 30th of June last, amounted to--
Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs.
Collected 133,437 18 0 15
Delivered 139,898 19 0 5
-----------------------------
Making a gross total of 273,336 17 0 20
-----------------------------
Or rather more than 841 tons per day.
And yet the Company’s merchandise operations at Liverpool exceed
those at London in the proportion of 9 to 6½!
As soon as the two agents, at their respective receiving-sheds, have
loaded their trucks, and have securely covered them with water-proof
and fire-proof tarpaulins, they turn them out, labelled, into the
open air, from which moment they are considered to be in the hands of
the Company’s superintendent of the goods-department. Accordingly,
under his direction, they are immediately drawn by horses first over
a weighbridge to receive their weigh-bills, and thence to a series
of ten turn-tables, by which they are scattered among thirteen
sets of rails, where they are marshalled into trains for their
respective destinations. In this operation it is alarming to see the
superintendent’s horses dragging the various luggage-vans, for not
only are the rails as well as the pavement between them exceedingly
slippery, but as the carriages have no shafts, the poor horse has not
power to stop his load, and accordingly affixed to it by his traces
he trots away before it, until it appears as if he must inevitably be
smashed to a sandwich between it and the carriage at rest which he is
approaching; however, just before the collision between the buffers
of each vehicle takes place, the dull-looking animal jumps aside, and
very dexterously saves himself from annihilation. The luggage-trains
thus formed are usually composed of 35, but sometimes of 70 or 90
waggons, weighing when empty about three tons each, and averaging
when laden about six tons. At the rear of each of these trains there
sits a guard. The Company’s goods-waggons of all descriptions amount
in number to 6236.
_Engine Stable and Cattle Wharf._
In order to prevent the locomotive engines which draw these
luggage-trains from crossing, or otherwise perilling the main
passenger-line at Camden Station, there has been constructed an
immense rotunda, 160 feet in diameter, lighted from the top by plates
of glass nine feet in length by half an inch thick, and capable of
containing twenty-four of the largest-class engines. In the centre of
this great brick building there is a turn-table 40 feet in diameter,
from whence the engines radiate to their twenty-four stalls, which
on a large scale much resemble those constructed in a stable for
hunters. The majority of these locomotives are capable of drawing 600
tons at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Each, when supplied with
coke and water, with steam up ready for its journey, weighs about 50
tons. At the entrance of this building there is a pit into which,
after their journey, they may drop their fire, and between the rails
in each of the twenty-four stalls we observed a smaller pit to enable
artificers to work beneath any engine that may require reparation.
The drivers of these huge locomotives, after every journey, inspect
and report in a book, as in the passenger-trains, any repairs that
may be required, and the engines are thoroughly cleaned every time
they come in.
At a short distance from this rotunda we observed a platform about
300 yards long, constructed for the landing of cattle, which arrive
there generally on Thursdays and Saturdays from 2 P.M. till midnight.
Fifty waggon-loads of bullocks, sheep, or pigs can here be unloaded
at a time, and then driven into strong pens or pounds, constructed in
the rear. The Company’s cattle and merchandise waggons are usually
painted blue, their sheep-waggons green. On the arrival of a train of
cattle it is interesting to see such a quantity of polished horns,
bright eyes, streams of white breath, and healthy black wet noses
projecting above the upper rail of their respective waggons, and
fatal as is the object of their visit to John Bull’s metropolis, it
is some consolation to reflect that--poor things--they are, at all
events, in ignorance of the fate that awaits them. In disembarking
the cattle, in spite of every precaution, an enfuriated Welsh or
a wild Irish bullock will occasionally escape from this platform,
and by roaring, jumping, and galloping, with depressed head and
up-stretched tail--
“Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not,
Who would be free, himself must strike the blow!”--
create no small consternation as well as confusion among the
green-coated pointsmen, porters, and policemen in charge of the
various sets of tributary rails which flow from the waggon department
into the main line. Instead, however, of attempting, as in the case
of Mr. Smith O’Brien, to capture the fugitive by force, this object
is effected by the simple stratagem of instantly turning loose
several other black-nosed bullocks, which he no sooner sees, than,
running and galloping towards the herd, he is quietly driven with
them into a pen, where he appears quite to enjoy “the Union,” which a
few minutes ago he had so violently and so vociferously attempted to
“_repale_.”
_Waggon Hospital._
Among the large establishments at Camden Station is one for the
maintenance and repair of the luggage-trucks and goods-carriages of
the Southern District, namely, from London to Birmingham--in which
alone there are 2000 luggage-waggons with a proportionate number
of trucks. The construction-shop for this department, in which 129
men were at work, is 437 feet in length by 64 in breadth. With its
sideways it is capable of containing and of repairing at one time
100 carriages; the average number in hospital being, however, from
60 to 70. In the smiths’ shop we observed working at once 14 common
forges blown by steam, also four portable ones. In locked-up vaulted
stores adjoining there was lying, besides deals and Memel planks,
4000_l._ worth of oak timber in scantlings of the various sizes
required, each lot ticketed with its dimensions. It is surprising to
observe the quantity of iron and oak timber used in the construction
of the Company’s luggage-trucks. Nevertheless, although they are
built infinitely stronger in proportion than any ship (for their
oak stancheons, being straight instead of curved, when they come
in collision strike end foremost), yet we witnessed results of
accidents which were really appalling; in many cases the largest of
these timbers had been splintered; indeed, in a railway smash the
British oak usually either stands the shock without flinching, or, if
it _does_ give, shivers into atoms. Barring, however, accidents, a
luggage-truck or waggon will last about twelve years.
Among the Company’s goods-carriages we observed eight powder-magazines,
constructed under a patent invention of the superintendent, Mr.
Henson. They were covered outside with sheet iron, lined with wood,
had leaden floors, and the axles were cased with hornbeam to prevent
vibration. With these precautions they each safely convey 4½ tons of
gunpowder through and over the sparks of fire and red-hot coals that
are continually, during the progress of a train, flying from the
funnel-pipe or dropping from the furnace of the engine.
As soon as a luggage-train has been unloaded at Camden Station all
the wheels of the waggons are gauged to see that there are no bent
axles, and that none of the “journals,” or working ends of the
axles, have been heated, for they sometimes get red-hot; and we may
here remark, that under heavy loads the tremendous vibration of the
axles of goods-carriages during their journeys materially alters
the composition of the iron, and that when the axles have once been
red-hot, although after cooling they are as strong as ever, they
are always particularly liable to get red-hot again, and the brass
boxes amalgamating with the iron, the ends of the largest axles
are occasionally wrenched off as one would break a carrot. The
luggage-waggons are minutely inspected on arriving and on departing
from Camden, Wolverton, and Rugby; besides which the guard hastily
examines them at every station, where they are also greased if
required.
_The Pointsman._
Among the servants of a railway company, or rather we should say of
the public, there is no one who, in his secluded station, has more
important duties to attend to than “the pointsman,” in charge of the
switches for diverting a train from one set of rails to another. As
it is of course necessary that these switches should be carefully
worked and guarded by night as well as by day, there are usually
appointed to each station two pointsmen, each of whom remains on
duty twelve hours at a time, taking the night and day work week
about. At Camden Station one of these men has fourteen switches to
attend to, and at Wolverton thirteen pairs. At the latter place,
to prevent intrusion and to increase precaution, the pointsman has
always the signal of danger on, but on perceiving an up-train about a
mile off, he shows a green flag to the Station signal-man, and does
not avert that of danger until he has received answer that “all is
right.” In thick weather he himself works a subterranean auxiliary
signal 500 yards off, showing lamps of different colours. In a fog,
to prevent any train running into the station, a man is sent down
the line about a mile, to affix upon the rails, every 200 yards, one
of Toy and Hansom’s patent fog-signals, which, exploding under the
engine with the report of a small cannon, warn the driver to stop and
remain where he is, until some one comes to give him orders. At Crewe
Station, from whence radiate three important lines of rails, namely,
on the right to Manchester, straight on to Liverpool, and on the left
to Chester, there are constantly on duty three pointsmen, one of whom
has seventeen pairs of points to attend to, namely, five belonging to
the Chester line, one to the Liverpool, eleven to the workshops. His
box stands between the Liverpool and Chester lines.
Nothing can apparently be more cheerless than the existence of these
poor fellows, who, cut off from society, in all weathers and in all
seasons have, in solitude, to perform duties for which no passing
traveller ever thanks them, and which he probably does not even know
that they perform. It is, however, providentially decreed that the
human heart warms under almost every description of responsibility;
and, accordingly, we invariably found these pointsmen not only
contented, but apparently intently interested in their important
duties; indeed the flowers which we observed blooming around their
little wooden habitations were not, we felt, unappropriate emblems
of the happiness which naturally springs up in the heart of every
man who will honestly perform the duties of his station. The
Company’s pointsmen have nominally not very high wages:--a gratuity,
however, every twelve months is given to them, provided they cause
no accident; but should one occur from their switches, no matter
how small, they forfeit it--an arrangement, we think, very cleverly
conceived.