282 RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION. 



separate sidings, loading-banks, and approach roads should be 

 set apart for the purpose, with suitable water-troughs and 

 cleansing appliances. Horses can be unloaded at any loading- 

 bank, but for the more valuable class of animals and for carriages 

 it is usual to construct a special horse and carriage dock, as 

 shown in Fig. 430, the carriages being wheeled off the end of the 

 carriage truck, as indicated in the section. Cartways alongside 

 the sidings are very convenient for unloading coals, stone, bricks, 

 sand, lime, and many other materials which have to be passed 

 out of the trucks in small quantities at a time. To encourage 

 and facilitate traffic at roadside stations, traders are frequently 

 allowed to stack or store large supplies of some of the above 

 materials on ground set apart for the purpose near some con- 

 venient siding, the stock being disposed of in detail to suit the 

 local requirements. Coal-drops are sometimes adopted where 

 there is a large trade in that commodity. They are constructed 

 by carrying the line of rails on strong balks of timber or small 

 girders placed across the top of walled-in coal-yards or divided 

 areas. The coal is thrown out of the trucks, and falls a depth of 

 15 or 20 feet into the yard below. In consequence of the height 

 from rail-level to ground a large tonnage can be piled up, and 

 stored in a small ar.ea, and the unloading of the trucks effected 

 very rapidly, particularly so where special trucks with opening 

 floors or hinged bottoms are used for the purpose. In many 

 cases capacious roofed-in sheds are built for storing coals, lime, 

 cement, grain, or other materials liable to deterioration from the 

 weather. These sheds are built alongside a siding ; the contents 

 of the trucks are unloaded or thrown into the sheds through 

 doors spaced to correspond to the railway-truck doors, and are 

 carted away through doorways on the opposite side. 



It is customary to place buffer-stops of some form at the ter- 

 mination of dead-end sidings in a station, to bring to a stand such 

 carriages or waggons as may be approaching with too much speed 

 to be stopped without the interposition of some substantial barrier. 



Figs. 430, 431, 432, and 433 are sketches of some of the 

 many kinds of buffer-stops, and will explain themselves. In 

 Fig. 430 the buffer-stop is made of flange rails, and is shown as 

 fitted in a carriage-dock with wrought-iron plate landing, A, 

 and plate-iron hinged flaps, B, B. The latter are turned over, 

 and rest on the floor of the carriage-truck, to form a pathway 

 when taking on or off a vehicle, 



