Parcel Delivery Office.
Besides what is termed “the goods traffic,” or the conveyance of heavy goods in luggage-trains, the London and North-Western Railway Company have for some time undertaken to forward by their passenger-trains, to the various stations on as well as beyond their lines, light parcels, for the conveyance and delivery of which, charges, of which the following are a sample, are made:—
| For parcels under 12 lbs. weight:— | s. | d. |
| From London to any part of Birmingham and vice versâ | 1 | 0 |
| For distances under 160 miles | 1 | 6 |
| „ „ 210 miles | 2 | 0 |
| From London to Durham, Carlisle, or Newcastle | 3 | 0 |
| From London to Edinburgh or Glasgow | 4 | 0 |
The above charges include porterage and delivery of the parcels. In London, however, the delivery is limited to within three miles of the General Post-office, or say six miles from Euston Square.
The mode in which the business of this department is conducted at Euston Station is briefly as follows:—
The superintendent of the department sits in an elevated room, the sides of which being glazed enable him to look down on his right and left into two offices, both of which communicate on the south with the street by which parcels arrive from or depart to various parts of the metropolis, and on the north side with a branch railway leading into the main line. The floor of one of these two offices is generally covered with baskets, brown-paper parcels of all sizes, game, triangular boxes of wedding-cake, and other articles, which have just arrived by rail from all parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland; that of the other with a multitude of parcels to be forwarded by rail to similar destinations. In the daytime the down parcels are despatched from the office in the break-waggons of various passenger-trains, and the following locked-up vans laden with small parcels are also forwarded every night:—
| 2 | vans for | Birmingham, |
| 1 | „ | Manchester, |
| 1 | „ | Liverpool, |
| 1 | „ | Carlisle and Lancaster, |
| 1 | „ | Newcastle, |
| 1 | „ | Derby, |
| 1 | „ | Nottingham. |
The number of parcels thus conveyed to and from London and the North amounted, in the year 1847, to 787,969, and in the year 1848 to 774,464; of the latter number it appears that only two were lost. The manner in which all these little parcels are circulated throughout the country is as follows:—
As soon as the empty railway vans arrive by the branch-rail close to the north side of the parcels-office, a porter, who, assisted by his comrades, has for some time previously been arranging the parcels into heaps according to their respective destinations, commencing with one set of them and rapidly taking up parcel after parcel, exclaims in a loud monotonous tone, easily enough set to music, inasmuch as it is exactly the middle note of a stout porter’s voice, and which never varies for a moment during the whole operation—
“Now Leighton.