The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-15
CLEARING HOUSE FOR RLONDON GOODS Wonderful Building Will Be
 Erected Soon A S7O,OOO,OOO PROJECT Description Sounds Like a Chapter of Romance-Will Be Great Bene-
 fit to the London Goods
 Traffic
From the London Standard.

"a purely private arrangement, an
 important suggestion has been put for ward This is, that the carriers should investigate and take up the road tra1- fic of the clearing house. and the rail ways should deal with the rail sec ton.
 MT. J. Culverwell, secretary of the New Transport company, yesterday supplied one of our representatives with the first detailed description of the proposed wonderful building which, with stock, land, and all appliances, IS estimated to cost about f14,000,0O0 The mechanism for working the ideal clear
 ing house is controlled entirely by electricity, and may be manipulated and controlled by the mere pressing or a button. A section of the building, for exhibition purposes, has been erect ed at the firms works at Ealing, which have been visited by many experts ln- terested in the scheme The structure is to be of steel. faced with stone, and measures 200 feet from sub-basement
 Cor crypt to roof. It is 1900 feet long and 500 feet broad, and comprises eight gigantic floors, each about the size of Lords cricket ground.
 1t is surrounded by courtyard 100 rect
 in width. The two lowest floors, which
 are both under ground level, extend be-
 yond the walls of the building l5o rect
 on all sides. Thee lowest level, or crypt,
 would measure Gnside and outside the
 wals) a total floor space of 1900 feet
 by 800 feet, and cold accommodate about 10000 loads of goods This level Is so equipped that any of these loads can be
 seized and deposited at any convenient
 spot in the clearing house or upon any vehicle either road or rail, which may be in the building. This can be done rap- idly, without any shock or concussion,
 and without touching or disturbing any other load whatsoever. Such maneu- yer in an ordinary goods station might involve the movement of 100 other loads, A Railway Delta
 The level above the crypt is occupied
 within the walls by the railway, and With out the walls by the delta rail approaches on the north and south. The garages for motor vehicles are on the east and west, 5nd without the walls. There are "A train berths in the clearing house, each run ming between narrow platforms with handrails on each side for sake of safe ty. Each train berth is 130 feet long, and in addition to these train berths and narrow platforms feet wide, there are eight shuttle tracks running north and south of the building. A clearing house shuttle is an electrically operated moving platform, which is used to carry load 10 any portion north and south, thus en- abing a load to be placed in any de-
 sired position on a departing train The requirements of the clearing house ara that all loads must be readily detachable from the vehicles carrying them, and must be contained, or held together, so that they can be hoisted by overhead travelling cranes.
 Miscellaneous goods would arrive in the covered body of road van, and would, travel by rail in that covered
 body on an open wagon. This van
 body, or box container, would have
 doors at the back, at the sides, and the roof Should clearing house box con- tainer arrive at a small country sta- tion where no crane was installed the goods would have to be unloaded by first opening the door, and then taking
 the goods out by hand but at the clear ing house, whatever the load might be it would have to be detachable in bulk from the vehicle on which it arrived.
 Fed by Tubes
 The railway approaches to the clear ing house are via three sets of 16ft. tubes, one set connecting the northern delta with Kings Cross and St. Pan l oras, and two sets connecting the south : i ern delta with Bishopsgate and the docks. and with Blackfriars and the
 railways south of the Thames
 ! Above the rail level Is the road level, which consists of the immense court
 yard surrounding the clearing house, and of thirteen bridges each as wide h as London Bridge intersecting the building from east to west, and span | ming the railway berths beneath at | right angles. These bridges are the means of road car ingress and egress
 to the building. Between each of these | thirteen bridges there is gap fsft. wide, discovering the railway tracks beneath.
 Road and rail vehicles can thus be brought into immediate vertical prox- unity to each other. and loads can be exchanged, by craning, fin a minimum space and time The bridges give also access to the crypt by means or tnelr i cranes which can lower goods through
 any of the eight trenches cut north and
 south through the railway level to the | floor of the crypt. On the underside
 ot the roads bridges are sets of cranes
 for the transhipment of loads to and
 from the rail to the crypt levels
 | Access to four great sorting floors is
 provided by 96 huge wells, piercing the building upwards to the skylights. Each
 well measures about 50 feet by 70 feet or as large as an ordinary swi,smng I bath. and is equipped with a full com plement or HVe-ton electric travelling
 cranes commanding all the floors above | The function of the four sorting rooms | is to receive box-container loads of goods by either road or rail. to un-
 load them, sort the contents by ma chinery, and reload the same contain
 CTS with goods for any particular desti- nation. The sorting machinery would have a capacity of about 2000 parcels or bales per minute.
 | Above the four sorting floors is the | top story for workshops, dining rooms stores and offices. and again above that is the roof garden, where the staff
 can take the air or smoke pipe at | leisure
 | The description sounds like a chapter | of a romance, but the inventors claim | that there would be very great saving l in time, and there would be really no need to worry about goods going\astray.
 So keen is the interest being takep-in the 1 scheme that only recently firm wrote
 to the directors giving list of delays
 which had happened to their goods under | present conditions. Certain goods left Wood Green on July 1, and were not re- ceived in Watford on July 10--17 miles in six days. Other goods were despatched on July to Rickmansworth. and were 1 not to, hand on July 15-21 miles in seven days Sor more. Others were despatched lon June g to soutfill and arrived July fv~ 1or-o