The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-01-18 00:00:00

Jan. 18, 1848.

RAILWAY AFFAIRS,

The differences of the Lancaster and Preston and the,
,
Canal Company are not yet healed. At the speco
meeting the conferences between the boards of the V°

corporations were stated to havete;nin;tedwiThout anY
result—except an intimation from the Canal ConwanY
seeking legal assistance.

Four: men were buried alive by the falling of a bridge
on the branch railway from Rawenstall to Bacup,
fell upon them while they were repairing some damage it
had sustained by the floods. After several hours two Welre
got out alive, but in a dangerous state. The other's
named Bently and Halstead, were both dead.
From our official returns it appears that the amount
traffic, for the last week, on upwards of 3,423 miles '0
railway was £160,026, thus accounted for :—£81,077 for
the conveyance of passengers only, £39,720 for the ca"
riage of goods, and a remainder of £39,229 for passengers
and goods together, not respectively apportioned ;
an increase of £21,726 over the corresponding week °`
the former year, when the mileage was 2,660. The
average earnings per mile for last week were £47, whilsi
in 1847 they were £52.

ATTEMPT TO DESTROY A PASSENGER TRAIN.-At the
quarter sessions held at Cardiff on the 9th of this month'
William Scott was convicted and sentenced to seven
years' transportation, for wilfully attempting to over
turn a passenger train on the Taff Vale Railway, 133'
removing the rails. The train proceeded at its usual rate,
and with apparent security, until it had arrived 18 mile 3
from Cardiff, when the engine, tender, and three of thet
carriages went off the line. Fortunately for the lives ce
the passengers, the engine went off on the side of the
mountain. On inspecting the line, it was discovered tbat
two of the rails had been taken up. Had the rails bee'
displaced only a few yards further on, the train must have
gone into the river.

AMBERGATE, NOTTINGHAM, AND BOSTON RAILWAY'
—W. F. Norton, Esq. (the chairman) and the whole of
the directors of this company, met at Bottesford, on
Tuesday, for the purpose of looking over the line frore,
that place to Grantham, a distance of about seven and
a-half miles—which they found in a very forward state-'
four and a-half miles of the permanent way having been
laid, and the remainder nearly ready to receive the per
manent way. The bridges, culverts, and embankments!
are all nearly finished. They then viewed the Gonesbk
tunnel, near Grantham, which is upwards of five hundred
yards long, nearly half of which is completed ; and after-
wards walked through the cutting at the east end-of the
tunnel, and examined the station ground at Grantham,
and also the branch line to the wharf. The directors e 1
pressed themselves highly satisfied with the progress
made.

FATAL RAILWAY RIOTS.—On the sth inst. a numbe.r,
of navvies engaged on the Aberdeen railway were paid
their wages, after which they began at midnight to offer
insults to some of the villagers at Stonehaven, who were
then engaged in celebrating Christmas in the old style.
Towards morning a good many houses were forcibly ell'
tered, and soon after it became evident that a premedi-
tated attack was about to be made. The constabularl
force were able to hold in check the earlier disturbances,
but the Highlandmen, being armed with bludgeons, and
perfectly ferocious, every attempt to resist their barbaroes
onslaught was futile, and the police had to abandon the
ground. Houses were now broken into, bakers' and bat'
chers' shops ransacked, spirit cellars in some cases emP'
tied, and one young man was so severely bruised by the
blows of a ruffian that he died on Wednesday night
others were more or less bruised, and some of them now
lie in a very hopeless condition.
ACCIDENT ON THE LONDON AND SOUTH-WESTER'
RAILWAY.—On Friday, the six o'clock p.m. up-trail'
from Southampton had proceeded as far as a place calle
Frimley, about a mile and a half on the Southampton.
side of Woking, when, owing to some disarrangement of
the machinery of the engine, it was brought to a stand,'
still. The engine-driver in charge of the train, David
Martland, immediately proceeded to repair the defect,
and, in order to prevent the possibility of accident, the
second guard was sent back with a red light to stay the
progress of the usual night luggage-train from Southarer
ton. This officer had been gone twenty minutes when
the expected train was heard approaching, and, in order
to insure safety, another person was sent back with 5
red lamp. This person had scarcely cleared the Pas'
senger-train, when the luggage-train ran into it with
terrific force, carrying destruction on every side. Mart'
land, the engine-driver, who was just putting the
finishing stroke to the repairs of his engine—the fit
guard holding his lamp to him at the time—was crushed.
to death beneath it, and the breaksman and the stoker of
the luggage-train were very seriously injured, the former
more especially.