MARLBOROUGH LINE.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20272, 25 June 1931, Page 8

MARLBOROUGH LINE.

INSPECTION BY RAILWAYS BOARD ; TOUR COMMENCES TO-DAY. [Fboh Ouk Special E«poktbb.J BLENHEIM, June 24. After tie roughest trip on record the Tamaliine, which had as passengers, members of the Railway Board, arrived in Picton over two hours late this evening. They travelled by train to Blenheim, where they were met by Mr E. P. Healy, M.P., and Mr F. Pawson, railway business agent, Christchurch.. Colonel J. «T. Esson, chairman of the Board, is sot accompanying the other members, who have with them Mr H. H. Sterling, General Manager of the Railways, Mr D. Rodie, Business Manager, and Mr F. "W. Furkert, Engineer-in-Chief, Public Works Department. Mr Healy, Mr P. B. Wilkinson, Commissioner of Crown Lands for the district, and Mr L. May, District Public Works Engineer, will join the party on its inspection of the northern section of the South Island Main Trunk railway to-morrow. The Board is not receiving evidence, but it will be waited upon by representatives of the farmers at Kekerangu. Although there has been very little rain in Marlborough in the last couple of days, the weather was' so boisterous to-day that railway construction work was impossible. Indeed,' many of the employees living in tents in exposed positions found their time fully occupied in preventing them from being carried away bodily by the gale. One or two were overturned, and the canvas in dozens of others was torn to ribbons. In places huge breakers were being dashed into spray on the rocks all along the coast, and the spindrift was carried in clouds far up the hillsides. Work on Use. From the Wharanui end the railhead has been advanced to a point below Kekerangu, and the steam shovels have done great work af the blue slip, giving it a much less menacing appearance than it bore three months ago. Formerly all road traffic passed over the slip, but a deviation ! has been constructed along the new railway line at a lower level. Not a great deal of progress appears to have been made in preparing the j formation nearer Kaikoura, but since March the southward drift of men and ! habitation has evidently continued. j The Board will leave here at 9 a.m. to-morrow to commence the inspection' and will probably pay a brief visit to Clifford Bay, tha propostd new northern ttrmisu*. ... ——