[Extracted from the Nanaimo Free Press of June 28, 1898.] 



The New Vancouver Coal Company's shipping wharves 

 at Nanaimo, although not completed to the point of 

 mechanical power and efficiency, which it is the present aim 

 and intention of Mr. S. M. Robins, the superintendent of 

 the Company, to shortly accomplish, are nearly, if not quite, 

 equal to the extraordinary requirements of the rushing 

 commerce of modern times, as shown by the lightning 

 dispatch given to the mammoth steam collier "Titania" on 

 her last call at the port of Nanaimo. The steamer 

 arrived at 11:30 a.m. and was under the new twin shutes 

 at 1 1 :55, from which coal was poured into the capacious 

 hold at the rate of 750 tons an hour for six hours, and 

 then only the necessity for trimming began, with its atten- 

 dant hauling of the immense vessel fore and aft to accom- 

 modate the proper trim and stowage in the hold. 

 But at midnight (12:25 a.m.) the cargo and fuel, 

 amounting to nearly 6,000 tons of Nanaimo coal, was 

 placed on board. The "Titania" took her departure at 1:15 

 a.m,, and by 5 p.m., all going well, was away past Cape 

 Flattery, in the Pacific Ocean; on her voyage to the Golden 

 Gate of San Francisco. 



Mr. Robins personally superintended the dispatch of the 

 loading, and, with the exception of meal times, and the in- 

 cidents of small hindrances, such as cars jumping the tracks, 

 etc., stopping hauling, and the dropping of the steamer's 

 steel rope into the water, causing her to sway off the wharf 

 and lose time in recovering her position, the work was car- 

 ried on continuously and finished without any accident. 



The new bunkers at the loading wharves, with the bins, 

 store nearly 10,000 tons of coal ready for immediate ship- 

 ment, and the two powerful locomotives assigned to the task 

 of hauling up the grades of one foot in fifty, took their loads 

 of 100 tons each up to the loading staiths with comparative 

 ease and speed. Trains, each of twenty empty cars, were 

 ready for the return trips. And so it wenton ail the 

 twelve hours ; while the bunkers yet hold a cargo for the 

 steam collier "Burma" soon due at Nanaimo. 



The New Vancouver Coal Company is to be congratulated 

 upon having the operations of the colliery brought up to' so 

 high a pitch of efficiency, and certainly in the matter of 

 loading, to the record point on this continent, while a 

 further reduction of two or three hours in time is promised 

 and looked for. Finis coronat 



