The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-07-08 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE,

The York and Scarborough Railway was to be opened
yesterday (Monday).
The first batch of railway bills received the royal assent
yesterday week. The first on the list was the Chester
and Holyhead.

During the floods caused by the late heavy rains, one of
the bridges of the North British Railway, near to the
village of Reston, was thrown down.
The opening of the Eastern Counties Railway—the en-
tire line from London through Hertford, Bishop-Stort-
ford, Cambridge, Ely, and Norwich, to Yarmouth—will
take place on Wednesday next (to-morrow).

At a meeting of the London proprietors in the Edin-
burgh and Glasgow Railway, on Friday, it was resolved
to co-operate with the Liverpool and Manchester share-
holders in obtaining an alteration in the directorate.

The directors of the Sheffield and Manchester line have
resolved to open the line from the Sheffield terminus to
the eastern mouth of the tunnel, on Monday the 14th of
July. The Glossop branch was opened on Tuesday last.
The projected bridge across the Severn, for the Bristol
and Liverpool Junction Railway, would only be two miles
in length, and that across a tidal stream—the cost, that is,
the estimated cost—£Boo,ooo.

A BUSY RAILWAY STAION.—The daily arrivals and
departures of passenger trains, at and from the North
Union Railway Station, Fishergate, Preston, at present
amounts to the extraordinary number of 56,
On Thursday last the Vice-Chancellor refused an in-
junction, moved on behalf of the mayor and corporation
of Chester, to restrain the Chester and Holyhead Railway
Company from carrying their line near the Chester race-
course.

FIRE IN A RAILWAY TRAIN.—On Saturday, a spark
from the engine, on the Glasgow and Greenock Railway,
fell into one of the third-class carriages, and set fire to
the dress of a lady, one of the passengers. Fortunately
the flames were speedily extinguished.
RAILWAY ACTS AND BILLS.—A parliamentary return
has been ordered " of all acts passed for the construction
of railways in Great Britain and Ireland, in each year,
from 1824 to 1845, inclusive, specifying the name, length,
and estimated cost of each. Also, a similar return of
bills for the construction of railways brought into parlia-
ment, but not passed into law, from 1824 to 1845 in-
elusive.

PROGRESS OF RAILWAYS.--The preambles of the fol-
lowing hills were proved in the Lords last week :—Cale-
donian; Newcastle and Berwick; Leeds and Thirsk ;
Manchester, Bury, and Rossendale ; Trent Valley ;
Whitehaven and Furness ; Eastern Union (Bury St.
Edmunds) ; North Woolwich; Dundalk and Enniskil-
len ; Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr (Cumnock Branch);
Guildford Junction ; Manchester and Birmingham (Ash-
ton Branch) ; Londonderry and Enniskillen ; London
and Brighton (Horsham Branch) ; Chester and Birken-
head Extension ; Ashton, Stalybridge, and Liverpool
Junction ; Ulster Extension ; Manchester and South
Junction ; Eastern Counties Branch. Rejected—Glas-
gow, Dumfries, and Carlisle.—The preambles of the fol-
lowing bills were proved in the Commons last week
Tunbridge and Tunbridge Wells; London and Croydon
Extension and Widening; Greenwich Widening and Ex-
tension ; South Wales (as far as Chepstow). The fol-
lowing have been postponed—North Kent; South East-
ern (Kentish lines) ; Croyden (Kentish lines) ; Cambridge
and Bury.

PROPOSED MANCHESTER, MIDLAND, AND
GREAT GRIMSBY JUNCTION RAILWAY.

Under the above title an advertisement appears in our
paper of this day, of a line of railway to be brought be-
fore parliament next session, to the leading features of
which, in accordance with our custom with respect to
projects of the merits of which we have any personal
knowledge, we take the liberty of directing the attention
of our readers. A project was put forward last year for
connecting Sheffield and Rotherham with Gainsbrough,
and, by the Great Grimsby line, with the HuMber. The
promoters, however, were not in a position to go before
parliament. They were enabled, however, to submit the
line to the Board of Trade, who stated it to be " deci-
dedly preferable to the Sheffield and Lincolnshire, or the
Sheffield Branch of the London and York ; " and that
" it afforded a better connexion, also, with the important
market town of Rotherham, and with the North Midland
Railway ; and gave as direct a communication as could
be desired with Gainsbrough and Lincoln." Encouraged
by this favourable report of their imperfectly-got-up line,
the promoters applied themselves to the task of procuring
for it still further claims upon public approbation. It
was judged to be of the highest importance to shorten as
much as possible the communication between the two
coasts ; and by a line, of which sections of a very favour-
able character have been taken, from Rotherham to join
the Sheffield and Manchester line at Wortley, it was
found that the distance between these two points (by the
existing lines of railway, vid Sheffield, 144 miles) could
be shortened to nine miles, and a corresponding reduction
made in the distance between Manchester, Liverpool,
&c., and Rotherham. This is especially an advantageous
feature in the improved project, Rotherham being the
market from which Manchester and the manufacturing
districts are supplied with live stock ; and it is a conside-
ration of still greater importance when it is seen that the
whole distance traversed from Wortley to Rotherham
passes through one of the finest coal-fields in Yorkshire
(the Parkgate and Silkstone), at present unprovided with
either railway or canal accommodation; that it passes
through the celebrated Greenmoor quarries at Wortley,
and that at Thorncliffe and Chapeltown it accommodates
most extensive ironworks in active operation, thus pro-
viding for these great desiderata in manufacturing pursuits
the best route to their places of greatest consumption,
and, at the same time, opening to an important agricul-
tural district a direct channel for its produce, and for
manufactured commodities in return. A reference to the
map of England will shew that, as at present laid out,
this line, with its auxiliaries, the Sheffield and Manches-
ter, Liverpool and Manchester, Birkenhead and Cheshire
Junction, and Sheffield and Huddersfield, at one end,
and the Great Grimsby on the other, forms the middle
portion of what may be fairly ranked amongst the trunk
lines of the kingdom. It forms also an important feeder
to the Bolton and Manchester, Bolton and Preston and
North Union, &c. It ought to be added, as forming an
opportunity of judging of its probable passenger traffic,
that the population of the west end of the line (in the
West-Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire) is 2,321,988,
and at the east end (Nottinghamshire and North Lin-
colnshire) 431,485.
It can scarcely be conceived that such a line, power-
fully supported as it will be, and having already been
favourably reported upon by the Board of Trade even
whilst in an imperfect state, can, with any probability of
success, be now opposed, especially as almost every line
which this session might have pretended to compete with
it, has been adversely disposed of by parliament.