Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE STATION IN ITS PARTICULAR CHARACTER — THE MECHANIC O-PHYSICAL ASPECT OF THE STATION The " Blue Print " or Map of the Station Grounds — The Yard, Jurisdictions of Agents and Section Foremen therein — Yard as a System of Tracks — Agents' Responsibility as to the Proper Condition of the Yard, Bridges, Ditches — Buildings on Station Grounds, Company and Others, Passenger and Freight Depots, Platforms, Necessary Repairs— Stockyards — Track Scales — Facilities for Handling Freight. Having discussed the station in its general nature and in its relation to the railway system as a whole, we may now take it up in its particular, concrete character. The discussion will resolve itself substantially into three parts dealing with the station in and by itself, the station in relation to its environment, and the organic unity of the two. In dealing with the station in and by itself it seems best for our purpose — that of explaining as clearly and succinctly as possible the general principles of station service — to direct our attention primarily and chiefly to stations of medium size, " small " stations being too simple, " large " stations too complex in their arrangements and operations for this purpose. Reference to these two classes may be had as occasion arises, now and then. The principal topics which will have to be discussed are the following: the mechanico-physical aspect of the station, the railway equipment handled at the station, the station force, and the functions performed at the station. To an agent taking charge of a station there is furnished by his company a " map" of the station, a " blue print " showing the contour of the station grounds, the location of tracks, buildings and other structures thereon, of streams and bridges, if any, of streets and s...