TANKS MAY HAVE BRIDGE TROUBLE

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30127, 10 May 1963, Page 14

TANKS MAY HAVE BRIDGE TROUBLE

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 9. The first two of the eight Centurion tanks bought for the Army were unloaded from s the deck of the freighter Kw-eichow at Jellicoe wharf today. The rest will be unloaded tomorrow. Many crates and boxes of spare equipment have to be moved from the ship's hold before the others can be lifted out. In spite of their long period of idleness, the 650 horsepower engines on the tanks began without trouble. Under the supervision of the port agricultural officer, Mr D. Chalmers, tank crews set to work to chip out deposits of’dirt embedded in notches in the tracks. The first tank would be taken to Sylvia Park by transporter today, said Captain W. J. Wooldridge, the officer in charge of the movement. It would be some days before all the tanks reached the park. A round-the-clock guard will watch the tanks while they are on the wharf. The tanks, which will be added to Queen Alexandra's Own Squadron, may strike bridge trouble on their way from Auckland to Waiouru. Because of their bulk they have to take a round-about route from Tokaanu.

Between Ohakune and Waiouru, Army engineers may be faced with either building a Bailey bridge to cope with them or unloading them from their transporter and trundling them across a ford. A private Auckland transporter firm which hopes to get the job of taking them to Waiouru believes it will take a week each to transport them and return to Auckland. If the firm gets the job, the big tanks will be carried on a giant transporter 100 feet by 11 feet wide —the only one of its kind in New Zealand.

It is an eight-axle vehicle which is able to keep a constant deck level through a hydraulic system.

After Tokaanu the transporter would have to branch off and head for Manunui, near Taumarunui. Then it would go south past National Park, and turn off to Waiouru.