Note 453 — Chapter XV

The trains will come in from the South Eastern Railway and the London, Chatham, and Dover systems by independent lines to a central station. They will then be run on a hydraulic hoist, eight to nine carriages at a time, and this hoist will be lowered until the rails on it are exactly level with those on the steamer; a flap is then let down completing the communication between the rails on the hoist and the rails on the steamer, and the carriages are immediately hauled on to the steamer.

When the steamer enters the dock to receive the trains, she is run between rollers, fixed two on each side of the dock and allowing the least possible movement of the paddle-boxes sideways. Movements lore and aft of the steamer are prevented by buffers (similar to ordinary locomotive buffers) fixed at her end, which butt against recesses at the end of the dock, and also by blocks fastened to the dock wall which receives her end a little further aft, ordinary mooring apparatus keeping the ship tight up against the buffers.

In rough weather there may be a slight vertical movement when the head of the ship is next the hoist, but the flap which is let down, as before described, will be sufficient to accommodate this slight difference of level, which will be little more than is met with in passing over a turntable as in many railway stations.