THE NEWSPAPER TRAIN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4488, 7 August 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE NEWSPAPER TRAIN.

(From the Graphic.) To have The Times on the breakfast table is no longer a luxury monopolised by Londoners. Within the last few weeks a complete revolution has been silently effected in the mode of despatching the metropolitan daily papers into the provinces, the result being their arrival at an unprecedentedly early hour in the leading Midland and Northern towns. Under the old system the various newspaper parcels not sent direct from the publishing offices were made up at the establishment of Messrs. W. H. Smith and Sons, and other wholesale agents, who employed large numbers of assistants for the purpose of enabling the multitudes of packages to be got ready in time for the early morning trains. At the beginning of the year the proprietors of The Times, profiting by the example of the Scotsman, which, by means of a special train, was published almost simultaneously in Edinburgh and Glasgow, commenced running an express between London and Birmingham, and by resorting to a system of making up The Times’s parcels during the journey, instead of waiting while they were being prepared in Printing House Square, accelerated their departure to such an extent that the inhabitants of the hardware metropolis speedily found themselves enabled to purchase copies of The Times almost as early as if they were residing in the vicinity of the publishing office instead of being more than 100 miles distant from it. So apparent were the extension of influence and other advantages derivable from the new system that a few days only elapsed before the Midland, Great Northern, and London and North-Western railways commenced running special early morning trains for the convenience, not alone of The Times, but of its contemporaries generally. This led to The Times' express train between London and Birmingham being discontinued, there being no further necessity for it. To enable the parcels to be forwarded in time for the early morning trains, it became indispensable that the various newspapers should bo planted somewhat earlier, In the case of Messrs. W. H. Smith and Sous, through whose hands a vast proportion of the provincial circulation of the London papers passes, it was found difficult to have the parcels, not consisting exclusively of copies of any particular paper, ready in time. Accordingly, rather than incur the risk of delay and unpunctuality, they decided upon transferring as much as possible the work of sorting the papers and making them into parcels from the Strand premises to specially-prepared carriages in the different express trains. On the Midland railway the sorting carriages are two in number, there being free communication by means of a large doorway between each. Each van is provided with a large fixed table, underneath which the papers are stacked as fast as they arrive. The number of newspapers, especially on Wednesdays and Saturdays, is enormous, and the labor of assorting and making them into parcels commences before the train has left St. Pancras. The wrappers arc prepared beforehand, and inside each wrapper is marked the number of papers required. One assistant selects the requisite number of .Daliy Telegraphs, another takes tho Standards, and so on, the

foreman seeing that the contents of each parcel tallies with the order. The train makes no stoppage until Bedford is reached, when all the parcels which have been made up are transferred to the news guard’s van, already pretty well filled with parcels from the various publishing offices and minor newspaper agents. The newspaper guard has to weigh the parcels, sort them according to their various destinations, and prepare the waybills for each ; an amount of occupation which makes his post no sinecure. At Leicester, which is reached iu about two hours, the work of the newspaper sorters is concluded, and the sorting vans are detached from the train. The arrangements arc of a somewhat experimental character, but it is intended to increase the amount of space at the command of the news guard, and to open a communication between his van and the sorting carriages, so that the parcels may be handed to him as fast as they are ready, thus saving the few minutes at present consumed in their transference at Bedford and Leicester - .