Read "The Lost Clue" by O.F. Walton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
NEW Street Station, Birmingham, is an exceedingly busy place at all times of the day; but at certain hours, when many trains are due, the bustle, hurry, and rush, in every part of it, are beyond description. Two great lines, the London and North-Western and the Midland, run through it; and although, to the initiated, there is nothing more easy than to locate the part of the station in which the various trains will arrive or from which they will depart, yet to a stranger in Birmingham, especially to one who has come from the quiet of some remote country place, the six different platforms, the numerous booking offices, and the busy stream of human life crossing and re-crossing the great bridge which spans the station from side to side, are both bewildering and perplexing.
It was at the busiest time of the ever-busy New Street day, that the London express came thundering into the station. It had rushed on like some great monster of the deep, flying through air instead of water, puffing, snorting, panting, but never once stopping after leaving Euston, until it came running triumphantly into Birmingham, having accomplished its journey of over a hundred and twelve miles in the short space of two hours.