PENRITH HERALD AND EAST CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND NEWS. No. 439. - Seventh Week in Quarter. Registered for Transmission Abroad. SATURDAY , FEBRUARY 14, 1874. PRICE 1D. The late railway disaster near Linlithgow in Scotland, which has resulted in the death of no fewer than seventeen persons, and the more recent double catastrophe at West Drayton on The Great Western line, when the passengers by two trains made miraculous escapes from death or mutilation, form striking comments on the defensive replies addressed to the President of the Board of Trade by the chairmen of different railway companies. Statements with reference to the last-mentioned disaster - which exhibited the dreadful picture of three smashed trains blocking up the line - have been made by some of the passengers who were in the carriages at the time of the collision. MR. CHARLES PADLEY, who travelled by the Great Western express, avers that, when the accident occurred, the train was dashing on at full speed (sixty miles an hour), though a heavy fog did not permit the driver to see anything till he was close upon the shunting goods train. He says that fogs, while they obstruct sight, do not interfere with hearing, and asks why guards are not provided with a powerful fog-whistle which might be heard far enough off to give the driver timely warning to stop. The same passenger is of opinion that he and his fellow-passengers owed their escape to the fact of the Great Western being a broad guage line. He thinks that it was the superior weight of the engine and the breadth of the carriages which enabled them better to keep their position, and not run off the rails. MR. EDWARD B. EASTWICK, late M.P. for Penryn who was also in the train, draws attention to the circumstance that, at the time the accident took place, it must have been known at West Drayton Station that the express had not passed, and he is naturally astonished why the shunting of the goods train, right in the way, should have been allowed to proceed. He rightly regards it as downright insanity to permit shunting to the line it is coming by when an express is due, and still more insane to put anything on that line when an express is overdue. It is a marvellous thing that the lessons taught by a long series of railway casualties should apparently have so little effect in inducing greater caution and carefulness among railway officials.