The Handbook of Railway Station Management; Or, Agent's Manual (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1861 Excerpt: ...alteration, as correctness should not be sacrificed for hurried dispatch. A careful man should be chosen to stow the goods in the trucks; one who has some idea of packing; not a man who will put a heavy package on a light one so as to crush the latter, or neglect to scotch a cask so that it will shift and stand a chance of being staved during shunting. This loader should keep an account of the number of packages he loads, and when the load is completed enter on a card for the purpose the number of the truck and number of packages loaded. The card should then be pinned to the consignment notes of goods in the particular trucks, and passed to the invoice clerk. When the invoice clerk adds up the number of packages on his invoice, that number should agree with the number on the card counted by the loader: if it does, the loader's note should then be initialed by the invoice clerk and preserved. If not, the invoice clerk, after proving his invoice correct from the notes, should have the truck unloaded, because something must have been wrongly loaded or left off. With furniture this plan cannot be carried out, neither is it of use when the error has been committed of two packages having been crossed in two trucks. Nevertheless, it is a plan that makes men careful, for, if they are not, they will constantly have the extra labour of partly unloading trucks to correct blunders. In most warehouses there is a guage to regulate the height of truck loads. Where this is not the case have one put up, and caution your loaders against loading too high such goods as bags of wool, bales of cotton, pockets of hops, boilers, &c. In loading station to station goods in full loads do not load them across your platform unless forced on' account of weighing them, as it saves la...