OAKGREEN STATION, WHERE THE LINE STARTS.
The line starts from Oakgreen, the principal station, where are located the offices of the management. In front of the buildings is a platform twenty-four feet long, provided with the usual seats and other conveniences for passengers, of whom a few may be noticed waiting for the express to convey them to their destination. The platform is sheltered from the elements by a glass roof, while the gates admitting to it are of the regular palisade type. At the further end is a passenger foot-bridge of trellis-work covered over; it stands high above the line, and is reached by two staircases, and everybody is warned not to venture to cross the railway by any other means. At the same time there are level crossings for the greatly daring.
Behind the station proper is the goods station and siding, forty feet long, the goods shed itself being four feet long.
WYNNSTAYBEECHVALE STATION, SHOWING TUNNEL IN THE DISTANCE.
Both of these stations, and indeed the other station and the whole line, are beautifully lighted up, when necessary, by electric lamps fitted with reflectors. There are in all fifty-eight of these soft, lovely lights; and a particularly tall one will be observed in the goods station for the purpose of affording sufficient light to that very busy portion of the company's undertakings. The lamps are supplied from storage batteries placed under the track, and their illuminating capacity is enough to light up the whole room without bringing the gas, with which it is also fitted up, into requisition.
The electric lamps also serve the purpose of lighting up both the signal cabins and the signal posts along the line. There are three of the former mounted at the side of the track, and they contain no less than twenty-six levers, from which stretch flexible wires and runners to the signal posts. The last-named, which are twelve in number, are three feet in height, and are fully equipped with semaphores, lamps showing red, green, and white, platforms and ladders. Besides these, there are also worked from the signal cabins sixteen sets of points, by means of rod connections and levers. Every particular with regard to the signalling and the shunting has been thought out and executed with the most laudable and painstaking thoroughness and accuracy. And these arrangements decidedly add a somewhat picturesque element to the line, while they also strengthen the effect of reality which is the chief impression given by this marvellous railway.
It is, of course, impossible to enumerate every matter of interest connected with the line itself, but it must be stated that there have been provided two turntables to take the locomotive and tender, and that the turntables have four levers for the points, and also that they have been furnished with spring buffers; and, further, that a tank, into which the boiler can be emptied, has been let into the track.
In the course of the length of the line, the train passes through a long cutting, forty feet in extent, and two feet deep. To heighten the illusion, the sides of the cutting are covered with grass, and on the top of both sides there is a dwarf hedge. This portion of the road supplies it with its chief scenic attraction. Some distance from the cutting there is a road bridge across the railway, three feet long by two feet wide. Before reaching the second station, Beechvale, a long and fearsome tunnel has to be negotiated—its actual length is eighteen feet. The station-house, platform, and other accessories of Beechvale are very similar to those at Oakgreen.
