EAST COAST LINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 9, 11 January 1940, Page 14

EAST COAST LINE.

WORK PROCEEDING.

COMPLETION NEXT YEAR

(From Onr Correspondent.)

GTSBORNE, Wednesday,

Work on the Gisborne-Waikokopu section of the east coast railway was resumed on full scale to-day, when the men classified as country workers returned to work after the holidays. It is expected that, barring interruptions through lack of materials or through a heavy drain on manpower owing to war conditions, the section will be complete! by March or April next year. The Tikiwhata and coast tunnels are still in course of construction, although both are well advanced. Otherwise attention is being concentrated upon bridge building and the stabilising of formation work on which weathering has taken place. Good progress was made in the past few months with the building of bridges, but delays in the arrival of steel, both for reinforcing work and for carrying spans, have been reflected in repeated postponements of the dates for completing the structures. ' All the concrete work on the bridges between Gisborne and the headquarte.s at Bartlett's camp has been finished. The delays in completing them should not be much prolonged, for it is believed that the' necessary steel is on hand in New .Zealand,, and that girders are being fabricated in readiness for delivery.