On Monday night, a serious accident happened to the mail-train
which leaves Scarborough for York and joins the North Midland. A train which went before it had been overturned, and the engine and tender lay across the line. No signal was given by any of the railway-guards and the consequence was that the up- train came in collision with the engine that had been upset. The engine-driver fell under the wheels, which went over him, and severed both his thighs; and another man had also been much injured by being pressed between two carriages. The line being a single one, the train was backed towards Scarborough, and de- tained for four hours, while the impediments were being removed from the line. It then proceeded at a tremendous rate, some of the passengers say at seventy miles an hour; and by the time it reached the Masborough station, had regained three hours of its lost time. —Sheffield Iris.
An alarming fire broke out yesterday morning in the seven o'clock train from Glasgow, on the Edinburgh and Glasgow line. When the train had arrived about a mile from the Castlecary station, dense smoke was observed to rise from a cattle-box, filled with household furniture, which, together with a luggage-van, was hooked on betwixt the engine and the open carriages containing passengers. It at once became evident that embers from the grating of the engine had caught upon the furniture, which was only covered by a sheet of coarse tar paulin. One of the passengers informs us, that so defective was the grating, that lie observed large pieces of red cinders blowing out upon the cattle-box. The passengers in the open carriages became alarmed, and the engineer was loudly hailed from all parts of the train. The guard raised his flag, and the pas- sengers their hats and umbrellas; but, whether these signs were imperceptible to the engineer on account of the dense columns of smoke which were now rising from the burning van, or whether lie imagined that the best course to adopt was to make all haste to arrive at Castlecary, where plenty of water could be got to extinguish the flames, it is certain, at least, that the train was not stopped until it arrived at that station. The fire soon reached a second van, in which the passengers' luggage was stowed ; and a burning fragment of the cattle-box was blown into one of the open carriages, to the great alarm and danger of the passengers in it. One of the passengers, though not in the carriage nearest the fire, leaped out, and was very much bruised about the face. Luckily, the distance to Castlecary was very short, as the train arrived at that station before the fire had fully reached the passengers. It was found, however, that the first van was completely destroyed, together with the furniture it contained, to the amount, it is said, of 1501. or 2001.—Edinburgh Witness.
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