THE HAWKESWOOD CUTTING

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22017, 15 February 1937, Page 16

THE HAWKESWOOD CUTTING

ACTIVITY ON MAIN TRUNK LINE

TWENTY-FOUR HOUR SHIFT BEING WORKED Three eight-hour shifts are being worked daily by big gangs of men engaged on the huge task of excavating the Hawkeswood cutting for the South Island Main Trunk line. The undertaking is one of the biggest and perhaps most difficult which the Public Works Department will be called on to handle in the completion of the line between Parnassus and Wharanui; but when it is completed, engineers say, they will be able to point to the Hawkeswood as the longest cutting in either Australia or New Zealand. The work of organising the big camp on the site of the cutting, five miles north of Parnassus, has been completed only recently, and in fact it was only at midnight last night (Sunday) that the point was reached Where the working plan was operating fully with continuous activity for 24 hours of the day. Now two monster drag-line buckets are shovelling night arid day at the top ends of the cutting. Diesel shovels are working in the lower faces, and rakes of trucks are on the move almost contiguously carting away the blue pug and clay. On the top of the cutting a Diesel scoop is always on the move, like a busy ant, taking away the hundreds - of yards of spoil which the drags lift out daily. At night electric light lit by power supplied from a Diesel generating plant and carbide flares provide illumination for the night shifts. Fifty-four men work on each shift. Early in the job, when the faces were first being cut, a constant watch had to be kept because of the danger from falling sides, but this menace has been reduced, although the work at the bottom of the cutting has to be carried on with extreme care. Up-to-date Accommodation The men on the job, married and single, seem well satisfied with the camp accommodation which has been provided for,them, according to statemerits which were made to a reporter, from "The Press" who was Shown, over the camp. The quarters along the new lines being adopted all over the Dominion for public works undertakings. For the married workers who have their families on the job. there are rows of long, neat huts built of canvas and timber, with fibre lining for protection against draughts and cold. Each of these huts has two bedrooms, one at each end, and a fairly roomy living room in the centre. Iron roofs keep the rain out, and. the living room is completely timbered along the walls for added protection. Each hut has a large range and oven,' and each is completely floored with ' timber. The single men, whose quarters are on the other side of the camp, have smaller, single-roomed huts, but built on the same lines of comfort and security.. Big Social Hall There is a proper water supply laid on to the camp, trenches for surface drainage, a sewerage collection system, and sump drainage for household waste. The men have been provided with a proper'bath-house, with showers and basins and hot water in regular' supply as the shifts come off the cutting. Stores are delivered \ regularly, access to the main road being easy. At the moment workmen are putting the finishing touches to a large social hall, 60 feet long by 40 ' feet wide, with a, stage, which will be used for the entertainment of the Whole camp. One noticeable feature of this, and it is said, of other camps along the line, is that the majority of the men working there own or have some in- . terest in their own motor-cars, which they use every week to take them either into the city or to Kaikoura. These .motor-cars are of all ages, shapes, and stages of wear, but they play ian important part in breaking • down isolation which at one time, made public works camps so unattractive except for the hardiest of workers.