The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-02-13 00:00:00

RAILWAY AFFAIRS.

CHESTER AND AND HOLYHEAD RAlLWAY.—Traffic for the
week ended February 4th, 1849 :—Coaching traffic, £855
10s. Id. ; parcels, £4O 17s. 6d. ; goods and cattle, £196
13s. 11d. ; steam boats, £l3l 18s. Bd.; total, £1225 os. 2d.
CALEDONIAN RA ILwAy.—The dissentient shareholders
in this company are busily engaged in organising an op-
position to the measures of the directors for leasing the
Scottish Central, the Dundee, Perth, and Aberdeen
Junction, and the Scottish Midland Railway.
BOLTON, BLACKBURN, CLITHEROE, AND WEST-
RIDING RAILWAY COMPANY.—At the half-yearly meet-
ing on Friday, the directors intimated a oil of 45 on the
A shares, and proposed that any shareholder who has
paid £l5 a share; and who is willing to pay the remaining
£lO, shall be allowed to retain 20 per cent. of the amount,
as interest up to the 30th of June, 1853. The engineer's
report stated, that if funds were adequately provided, the
line to Clithero would be opened during 1849.
FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.—An engineman and
a fireman have both lost their lives by an accident on the
Clarence Railway. Their names were Richard and John
Holmes ; the former was 25, and the latter 22 years of
age, They left Stockton-upon-Tees, with the first pas-
nr,„,.„;„. OA L-te
past Pea g nO'CCIOCti."I As the train approached Stiffington,
seven or eight miles from Stockton, an accident happened
to the engine ; a bolt gave way, by which the machinery
was deranged, Richard Holmes, the engineman, was in-
stantaneously killed, being completely crushed between
the engine and the tender ; his brother, at the same time,
being most dreadfully scalded by the boiling water :
he died on Sunday last. To increase the melancholy
event we are detailing, the father of these two young
men, two and half years since was killed by an engine on
the Clarence Railway, and the mother has thus been
bereaved of a husband and two dutiful sons by an acci-
dent of the same nature. The merchandize was attached
to the passenger train, and was thus the means of keep-
ing the carriages on the line, otherwise more lives might
have been los!.
LAUNCH OF THE FLOATING RAILWAY.—The launch
of this vessel for ferrying the trains over the Frith of
Forth took place on Tuesday, at Messrs. Napier's ship-
building yard, near Glasgow. The operation excited
considerable interest, more particularly as the vessel was
built " broadside," and not in the usual manner with
her bow or stern to the river, it being conceived that,
owing to the elevation of the ground above the high-
water level of the Clyde, the launch of the vessel on the
broadside system could be more safely and easily effected.
The signal being given, the blocks were removed and the
stopper ropes cut, when the vessel, 170 feet long on deck
by 34 feet wide between the paddles, and 10 feet deep,
strongly framed and plated to sustain the great weight
of a train of loaded trucks, glided with a gently increasing
velocity to the end of the ways, fell about n feet to the
river, gave two or three heavy rolls, and then drifted into
the centre of the stream, and was towed to the Brownie-
law, where she received her machinery. Her engine is
56-inch cylinder, and 3-feet 6-inch stroke, working each
paddle. A chimney on each side allows a clear space in
the centre for three trucks loaded abreast, and the cap-
tain stands above them, between the paddles, to steer
either end foremost. The vessel is of iron, ribbed ; the
plates on the bottom being half an inch thick.
On Thursday, at Bristol, C. M. L. West (formerly a
confidential clerk in the firm of Miles and Kington, and
apprehended at Hamburg. The
son of a colonel in the army), was examined on a charge
of stealing a railway loan note, for £5OO, the property of
his employers. He was
note had been deposited, for an advance of £2OO, with a 1
sharebroker. West was committed for trial. 1