WHAT NEXT?
I left a comment on the last post, in it I mentioned the small group of 3 employees, 3, you'll find them to the left of this image just above the halfway mark. There is possibly a fourth person particularly concealed behind the rack and near the centre. The value in that is we now have an idea at least of how many people were employed in this area bearing in mind that this was an earlier, 1903? image. No doubt things will have changed between that time and 1948. You would expect perhaps more rail traffic and p[potentially more employees. I have access to records that could give us a list of names but I might leave that for now.
What else can we learn from the image above that wouldn't be far wrong some 45 years later?
WHAT CAN WE SEE?
1. A large luggage room, quite spacious, racks to the rear containing stored items, and a workspace in the foreground with a lengthy countertop and a wheeled trolley. There appear to be sacks of goods in the foreground which suggests that this front area was a clearance point for light freight items for receipt and dispatch.
2. The racks are quite tall, there are 5 storage levels, 4 bays high and 4 bays across. It looks like there is a central access aisle between the stacks and a total of 4 cross aisles which would give access to a total of 80 storage levels in each cross-aisle, there may be an extra set of bays against the rear wall. The four aisles include the one across the front which can only access one side being the front aisle. The other 3 cross aisles have access to the left and to the right. Adding them up we have 240 locations in the inner aisles plus another 40 across the front. That's an approximation, of course, it could be plus or minus a few. For the sake of the discussion, let's agree on 280 locations within which left luggage could be stored with multiple items within each bay.
3. You can see that at the time of the photograph, the storage locations were just over half full, you would expect more to be filled in 1948 due to increased traffic, etc. We are also working on the assumption that no extra storage space was added in the intervening years, the whole station was re-modeled in 1927.
3. You can see that at the time of the photograph, the storage locations were just over half full, you would expect more to be filled in 1948 due to increased traffic, etc. We are also working on the assumption that no extra storage space was added in the intervening years, the whole station was re-modeled in 1927.
WHERE IS THIS GOING?
The point here is that this layout and the number of spaces necessarily mean that there had to be a location control method in place. Employees had to know for example, that when a customer came to retrieve a suitcase, just where it was to be found in the racks.
A control system in those days was nowhere near as sophisticated as today as you might expect. In those times, sometimes card index systems were used but more likely in my view, there would have been a ledger system. It would be based on a 'Day Book' with item details and tag number entered in for each tag issued.
A control system in those days was nowhere near as sophisticated as today as you might expect. In those times, sometimes card index systems were used but more likely in my view, there would have been a ledger system. It would be based on a 'Day Book' with item details and tag number entered in for each tag issued.
It's not hard to envisage a page with the following headers:
Date.. Time.. Item.. Tag.. Location.. Clerk.. Days.. Move 1.. Move 2.. Move 3.. Move 4.. Collected
ACTUAL TICKET IMAGE:
IS K 16 THE LOCATION NUMBER?
A quick explanation of terms apart from those that are obvious. The DAYS column is how long the item is likely to stay as given by the owner, the MOVE columns would take into account that items could be moved around during their stay to consolidate and optimise the available space within the racks.
What if a customer came back to access their case and then have it put back? Would they issue a new tag in that instance for example? They would just produce their portion of the original tag, the attendant would fetch it and the customer does what they need to and the piece is put back again, maybe minus a few things are plus some?
AND? Only one part of the luggage tag was found, the one that was attached to the case, the other part, the customer receipt, was never found.
It's also interesting to note that the location ledger was not produced in court, that is something that would have happened in a trial situation and an inquest is always looked upon as being normally well detailed. As it stands, a perhaps valuable piece of information was not produced.
It's also interesting to note that the location ledger was not produced in court, that is something that would have happened in a trial situation and an inquest is always looked upon as being normally well detailed. As it stands, a perhaps valuable piece of information was not produced.
For the record, I am currently in touch with a number of organisations trying to track down an example of such a location ledger, early days but hope to hear soon.
Checked R Craig record, Raymond was there but only for a few months in 1950. There was no R Craig employed at SAR during 1948, the last man with that initial was 1938. I could only fine one Craig there in 48, Alec Craig. Odd. Jimbo
ReplyDeleteJimbo, Thanks for that. Interesting isn't it? I went in and checked again and you are absolutely right, Raymond was only there for 1 year but what is really intriguing is that there wasn't an R Craig employed at SAR in 1948, which was when the suitcase was deposited supposedly to R Craig, nor was there an R Craig employed in 1949 by SAR. Curiouser and curiouser!
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