The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-13 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLiWDICE.

On Thursday the ceremony of raising the first sod of
the Irish Midland Great Western Railway was performed
by the Lord Lieutenant.
The extension of railways during the last three years
from about 1,503 to 2,000 miles, has had the effect of in-
creasing the average receipts per mile from about £l,BOO
to £3,200, and the total returns from about £2,600,000
to just £4,000,000.
It appears, from a published list of the railway plans
deposited at the Private Bill-office and House of Lords,
up to the 31st December, that' not fewer than 549 of the
lines provisionally registered have been abandoned by their
projectors.
It is said that the Croydon Atmospheric line will be
opened for public traffic on Monday week, and that in the
experiments lately made with heavy loads, 130 tons have
been conveyed over the viaduct of 1 in 50, that bridges the
Brighton and South Eastern lines.
In consequence of the scarcity of English draughtsmen,
a party of about a dozen Dutchmen, imported from Am-
sterdam, areemployed in copying railway plans at Lincoln.
It is stated that Frenchmen are similarly employed in
London.

RAILWAY SUBSCRIPTION CONTRACTS.—An immense
" blue book" has just been issued, in compliance with an
order of the House of Commons last Session, and in con-
tinuation of a return which last year made some consider-
able stir. It is a list of sabscribers for less than £2OOO,
to any of the railways of last Session. The details pos-
sess no interest whatever. The total amount of these
subscriptions is £21.386,703 6s. 4d;
LIVERPOOL AND BOLTON DIRECT.—This embryo pro-
ject, like many of the recent railway schemes, is to be
abandoned, in consequence of its financial prospects being
exceedingly gloomy. At a meeting of the acting commit-
tee, held last week, the first resolution passed was, that
the company was insolvent. This resolution was adopted
after the statement of the accounts had been produced,
from which it appeared that whilst the expenses already
incurred amounted to £4,000, the entire deposits were
only £7OOl We understand that the engineer's account
against the company is £1,700, and the advertising account
upwards of £2OO. There are about forty seven members
of the provisional committee, and the solicitors have been
instructed to apply to each of those gentlemen for the
sum of £lOO, to meet the liabilities.
WOOD BRIDGES V. STONE BRIDGES ON RAILWAYS.
—The timber bridge costs £lOOO, lasts twenty years, and
requires an occasional coat of paint: the stone would cost
£3OOO in the hands of the proprietor, and be prefers the
timber bridge at £lOOO, placing the iemaining sum of
£2OOO in the funds. At the end of twenty years he finds
that the accumulated interest has not only doubled his
capital of £2OOO and made it £4OOO, but has also paid for
the painting and slight repairs of his bridge; and with
his £4OOO he may now build, if requisite, a new timber
bridge at an expense of £lOOO, and replace untouched the
whole of his original capital. In like manner it will fol-

low that a timber bridge costing only half of a stone one,
and lasting twenty years, will be cheaper in the end than
a stone bridge lasting for ever, because the other half of
the capital thus saved would, in twenty years, more than
double itself, or reproduce the whole sum of the original
investment.— Weale's Ensamples of Railway Making.
RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.—On Friday week, a man en-
gaged on the Midland railway, at the Methley station, in
unloading some waggons, was run over by a train and
killed.—On Saturday, one of the workmen employed at
a reservoir, at the Leeds station, left his work for mo-
ment to watch the departure of one of the trains to York.
While he was watching the York train depart, the Sow-
erby Bridge train came up, and before he could get out of
the way, he was struck, and doubled up by the fire-box.
He is likely to recover.—A collision took place on the
Midland line on Saturday week, when the " brake " of
the Selby train was completely smashed, and the two
engines attached to the Midland train were shattered to
pieces. The broken parts were so jammed together, and
such were the difficulties attending their removal, that it
was eleven o'clock at night before even one line of rails
could be cleared of the fragments.—On Thursday, two
men were killed on the Pontop and South Shields line,
by the falling of an immense heap of ballast.—On the
same day, a train of loaded ballast waggons, with twelve
excavators, on the line at present in progress to Canter-
bury from the South-Eastern Railway, was precipitated
down an embankment, in consequence of the train going
further than was intended, through the density of the fog.
The waggons were dashed to. atoms. One labourer was
killed, and several others seriously hurt.
ABSTRACTION OF TRAFFIC BY RAILWAYS.-We may
cite one instance, as showing how the whole carrying
business of the districts through which it passes must
ultimately find its way to the railroad. In former days,
the transit of much of the heavy goods to and from the
west of England passed by the Kennet and Avon Canal.
When the Great Western Railway was first in agitation,
the proprietors of the canal were disarmed from all oppo-
sition ; they were told that the railroad was only fitted for
light goods—that it never would interfere with the canal
business—that, in fact, i t would rather be of service to it,
by materially increasing the traffic of the district. The
railroad was completed. As it passed through the stone
districts, it began to carry stone to mend its own bridges :
this was natural. As it came from a coal country, it
carried coal to its own depots : this was natural likewise.
By and bye, it began to add to the carriage of its own
stone and coal the carriage of a little of other people's.
Its luggage trains were extended and in.proved, till it
ended by carrying everything for everybody. The only
chance the canal had of competing with its gigantic rival
was by materially reducing its charges. By so doing, the
proprietors preserved their traffic in its former extent;
for the canal itself is an excellent one, and all its arrange-
ments of high order. But, of course, they reduced their
profit precisely in the same ratio that they reduced their
fares. Now they are wisely following the torrent, and
turning their canal into a railroad. It passes through
districts where a railroad is much needed, and to which
such an establishment will be a great boon.—Church of
England Quarterly Review.