Читать книгу The Stranger's Handbook to Chester and Its Environs онлайн

20 страница из 41

The centre of the building, which is two stories in height, contains in the upper compartments, offices for the General Station Committee for the Chester and Holyhead, and the Great Western Railways; while on the ground floor, besides the usual offices and waiting rooms, we find the noble range of Refreshment Rooms, presided over with efficient zeal and attention by Mr. Hobday, and his select corps of experienced assistants. If after your late journey, you feel any of the cravings of the inner man,—if dinner à-la-mode lie uppermost in your thoughts—if you would enjoy an invigorating cup of coffee, unimpeachable pastry, a good glass of ale, or a fragrant cigar, take a turn in the Refreshment Rooms, and the utmost wish of your soul will be incontinently gratified.

The entire number of hands employed upon the passenger station is 109, and in the goods department 130, including clerks, porters, pointsmen, &c. Between seventy and eighty goods trains arrive and depart every twenty-four hours, averaging 1600 wagons daily. In 1855, somewhere about 684,000 tons of goods, minerals and livestock passed under the manipulation of Mr. H. Parker, general goods manager. The Station Committee manufacture their own gas, the consumption of which upon this station is about 6,500,000 feet per annum. The present gas and waterworks now need to be removed more to the south-east in order to afford additional station room—the smallness of the present immense building being a source of continual and growing inconvenience. ssss1