PAEROA-POKENO RAILWAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 114, 17 May 1927, Page 18

PAEROA-POKENO RAILWAY.

THE HAURAXI PLAINS SECTION PROGRESSIVE WORK OF DREDGE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) PAEROA, Monday. Slowly and steadily the embankment across the Hauraki Plains which will eventually carry the Paeroa-Pokeno railway is being constructed. The work is proceeding in peat country west of Ngatea,where for some months a Lands Department dredge has Tjeen excavating a canal to drain the land and to obtain spoil for the railway. The canal has now been made from the Waitakaruru Maukoro canal eastward for 109 chains, and the face is now" 33 chains west of the Pouarua Road and about three miles from the Ngatea post office The cut has been made 13ft deep, and 6it or 7ft of clay has been brought up and deposited on the northern bank. Naturally the rate of progress lias been slow on account of the nature of the country, which has necessitated the making of small cuts at first and gradually enlarging them as the banks consolidated sufficiently to hold the weight of the spoil. *A great deal of timber has been encountered, while the inacessibility of the dredge makes the transportation of fuel a long and difficult matter. Recently a dredge returned to the junction with the Maukoro canal and commenced deepening the cut to 18ft. Two dredge crews are employed, and the machine is kept working about 20 hours a day.