FIRST TRAIN OVER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 127, 31 May 1937, Page 8

FIRST TRAIN OVER.

MOHAKA RIVER VIADUCT. UNPRETENTIOUS EVENT. ——- i (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) NAPIER, this day. Contact by railway between the north and south banks of the Mohaka River, which is spanned by the giant Mohaka viaduct, the largest structure of its kind in the southern hemisphere, has at last been established. The first train to use the viaduct and cross the river made its run on Saturday, but its successful passage was not the pretentious event which might have been expected as the culmination of so great an engineering accomplishment. It was, in fact, an exceedingly prosaic affair. The train consisted of a light motordriven locomotive drawing half a dozen trucks loaded with gear used in the construction of the line and of the viaduct itself. Supreme irony of the occasion and its circumstances is that the locomotive itself had in the first place been carried to the locality on the back of a motor lorry. Nevertheless the fact remains that the Mohaka River has at last been crossed by rail.