STRATFORD LINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 260, 2 November 1932, Page 11

STRATFORD LINE.

THE TARANAKI END. WHANGAMOMOANA DISTRICT. THE EDGE OF THE PLAINS. LEISURELY RAIL BUILDING. (No. IV.) In previous articles the gradual penetration of settlement from the Ohura end of the line, and the difficulties of the heavily bushed country, where the line crosses the Tangarakau River, were described. We now come to the southern end of the line, where the valleys begin to open out before merging into the rich, grassy plains of Taranaki. From Tahora, the terminus of the Railway Department's service since 1920, it is a run of 10 miles to Whangamomona.

Fame is a puckish thing, and to some people Whangamomona is noted because it has the first "pub" when one is going south of the line, and the last when one is going north. There is not another hotel between Te Awamutu and Whangamomona. The King Country, a closed area to spirituous liquors, ends between Ohura and Tangarakau. Although there are no hotels in the King Country that does not mean that you cannot get a drink if you know the run of the ropes, and the story of sly-grog selling would be well worth telling as a phase of colonial life. A truthful writer who knows the Ohura, could not say that he had never seen a man who had dallied too long with hops, but the township escaped the hectio past of such a place as Taumarunul.

At one time whisky was distilled in the King Country, but not to-day; homebrew is common enough, but the more fiery drinks have to be imported, some openly and some surreptitiously. No matter how it comes in the news that it has arrived soon travels. If it be a private party the host knows his guests will not fail him; and if the importation is made for business purposes, the 6tranger will be mystified by the sudden and unwonted stream of customers to some insignificant shop—and all the callers go round the back. It is a strange way of making a living, but no doubt it has a certain spice of adventure which appeals to some men not fond of hard work.

Sheep and Cows. Whangamomona county has a population of about 1500, and from the line one sees nothing but settled farms, some of them a bit rougher than the gardenlike expanses of the country lower down, but all looking in good heart, and the whole district well deserving of its name which means "Fertile Valley." As in the Ohura, the Whangamomona people go in for sheep and adirying, and they send their cream down the line to Douglas, 11 miles from Stratford, the first factory one comes to after -leaving Matiere in the'Ohurar'lt is needless to say anything about the dairying in this part of the world, Taranaki's other name is "The Garden of New Zealand," and people have even been known to quote a rather dog-eared remark about a place flowing with milk and honey; Prosperous Stratford. Stratford would probably have never figured so much in print if it had not been chosen as the place where the much-discussed railway was.to start its northward journey. It is a pleasant country town—Taranaki seems full of them—with a population of between 3000 and 3500, and wears that comfortable look that comes from being the centre of an extensive dairying, sheep, and cattleraising district. Stratford was named after Shakespeare's birthplace, and the idea is amplified by naming the, streets after his works. ' Wandering round the clean little town one could not help smiling at the conceit, and wondering if the people who'christened the town had ever read Touchstone's remarks on stock breeding—the foundation of the prosperous little township that now immortalises the great bard on its street corners.

At the back of Stratford rises the splendid peak of Mount Egmqnt, and the traveller down the Auckland-Taranaki Main Trunk line will admit that no railway line could offer a more dramatic climax. One would willingly travel through more cuttings and narrow valleys than even this line possesses—if one could be certain of a Fujiyama at the end.

Slow Work. Thirty-one years seem an unconscionable time to take to build 89 miles of railway, but that is the price we have to pay for , our leisurely, political New Zealand way of doing these things. . It is .not. . as: though the Stratford line . offered any insuperable difficulties; the engineers had not to tackle anything like the Spiral and huge viaducts that made the middle part of the Main Trunk line so formidable. Running for so many miles in comparatively narrow valleys, the Stratford line necessitated an unusual amount of excavation—it seems one long series of cuttings and fillings—but there were no deep gorges like the Makatote to span, and the tunnels, with one exception where very loose ground was met, were straightforward jobs in papa coun : try. Unlike the Main Trunk, which for miles in the central part went through miles of virgin country, the Stratford line came after settlement, except for the 24 miles between Ohura township and Tahora. In that, section the line goes through forest country, and has to cross the Tangarakau River, necessitating the only important bridge on the whole line, but even that structure is simple compared with the great viaducts on the Main Trunk line.

Compared with railway construction work in countries where the contract system is followed, the Stratford was a long-drawn-out job. The first sod was turned at Stratford in 1901, the 47 miles to Tahora was not taken over by the Railway Department until 1920; the first sod was turned at the Okahukura end in 1911; Matiere, 10 miles, was reached in 1922 and Ohura, another nine miles further on, in 1926.

Engineering Ingenuity. Although there were no spectacular works on the line, the engineers had quite enough difficulties to surmount owing to the rough country in the Trinity of the Tangarakau, and these were overcome with the resource and ingenuity characteristic of the technical stSff of the P.WJ). A problem that required considerable thought was the piercing of four tunnels, with an aggregate length of two miles and a half, which occurred in a five-mile stretch. In order to have gangs working at both ends of each tunnel, the engineers had to find means and methods of transport over the intervening ridges, high and thickly bushed.

Considerable resource was also shown in placing the big,Boft steel girder in place on the piers of the bridge that spans the swift Tangarakau. As the river, is liable to rapid rises, the usual method of building temporary false-work was not suitable, and the massive central girder .was weighted at one end with one of the shore girders, plus a quantity of ballast, and simply hauled across by means of a winch anchored on the opposite side of the river. This method was suggested by a similar feat that was performed by the New Zealand Tunnelling Corps in Flanders during the Great War. The P.W.D. still controls the line from Okahukura to Tahora, a length of 42 miles, and will not hand over to the Railway Department for some months yet, as there is a lot of eleaning-up to be done and much of the line has to consolidate before it will be fit for regular traffic.

Linking Arapuni and Mangahao. This Okahukura-Stratford route has an additional interest to Aucklanders at the present time, as gangs of men are now busy carting the poles that will eventually carry current from Mangahao to Arapuni, and vice-versa. When the two groat hydro-electric schemes are linked up, both ends of the island will have an alternative to fall back upon, should one of them fail —an alternative that will be just as valuable in its way as the railway will be as an alternative to the Main Trunk line. (Concluded.)