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 convenient 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 area, 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 termination 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.
[Fig. 431] shows a buffer-stop made of double-head or bull-head rails; and [Fig. 432] is a buffer-stop made of heavy timbers.
[Fig. 433] shows a very simple buffer-stop frequently adopted for sidings where there is not much traffic. It is made of good old sleepers bound together with old double-head rails, and the interior filled with earth or clay.
In addition to the buildings alluded to in the foregoing description, the engineer has to design and construct very many others in connection with railways. These will include large running-sheds for stabling working locomotives; sheds for housing carriages; workshops for building and repairing engines, carriages, and waggons; foundries; large stores for materials; offices; dwelling-houses; mess-rooms, etc.; many of them involving questions of difficult foundations, and nearly all of them requiring special strength and stability to meet the heavy weights and vibrations to which they are subjected.