LONGEST IN DOMINION
NEW RAILWAY BRIDGE
USED FOR FIRST TIME TODAY
(By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. This Day. Without any ceremony the new railway bridge over the Rakaia River was opened to traffic for the first time today. The bridge is the longest railway structure in New Zealand, being 5720 feet in length. The change-over from the sixty-year-old wooden structure was made by the passage of the Christchurch-Invercargill express at 9.56 a.m. and a mixed train from Ashburton, which passed over the new bridge at 12.30 p.m. Once customary precautions are observed in regard to the passage of trains over the newly-constructed lines there will be no speed restriction over the new bridge. Trains will be able to travel at a normal speed of fifty mile? an hour, compared with a maximum speed, of twenty miles an hour allowed on the old bridge. The new bridge, which originally was estimated to cost £85,000, has been built a short distance upstream from the existing wooden structure. -
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19391212.2.91
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 141, 12 December 1939, Page 11
Word Count
164LONGEST IN DOMINION Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 141, 12 December 1939, Page 11
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