KILBIRNIE'S TUNNDEL

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 117, 18 May 1906, Page 6

KILBIRNIE'S TUNNDEL

THE HILL PIERCED LAST NIGHT. 'A RUSH- OF WATER. PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT - WORKS. Very quietly, but steadily, tho operations are being curried on which will result in bringing yet another x^ortion of the outer part of tho city — the Kilbirnio and 'Maranui district, into closer touch with the business centre of Wellington. Shortly after 10 o'clock la.vt night, residents in the neighbourhood x>i the tunnel being pierced through tho hill to Kilbirnio heard a rush of water, and tho sound continued throughout the night. Tho last face of rock between Wellington and Kilbirnio in the bowels of Mount Victoria had been pierced. When Mr. Maguire's excavators entered the tunnel yesterday morning thero was a mass, of rock only lift 6in in thickness between the city and Kilbirnie, and when the night shift went on at 4 p.m. only 4ft of rock stood in tha way. At 10 o'clock, after a blasthad been fired, the water began 10 trickle through. A little work with the pick on the upper part of the wall, and the hill had been pierosd. Then the excavators came out — and so did the water, tho flow of which gathered volume and force rapidly until it i\m tha full width of tho tunnel and coursed down Pirie-street like a miniature flood. f Boring work had been goingi on continuously in the tunnel, for it is always night in the bowels of the earth, and the men must work by lamplight whether they are on tho morning, evening, or midnight shift. Two or three weeks ago the excavators had to cease work at the Kdbirnie end of the bore, because tho tunnel had become watei logged. It was ths banked-up water in ' the Kilbirnie drive which provided last night's flood. In tlio Piric-street bore gangs of eight men have been driving ' on steadily day and night through the rock, and their progress last week was a distance of 31ft. When the hole has been made clear through the hill, only about a quarter of the tunnelling will have .been completedIt is not always that a complete bore can be made through a hill as effectively as that through Mount Victoria. But the rocky formation has permitted n straightahead drive until daylight was admitted. Xoiv that the bore is through, gangs of excavators will begin in the centre and "opan out" the tunnel to its full scope. One party will send its spoil by miniature tramway into Kilbirnie, and the other will continue to send its bpoil to the gully at the top of Elizabeth-street. When the full-sized bore of the tunnel has been made at the centre, then tho bricklayers will get to work, bricking-in from the centre simultaneously outwards towards the east nnd the we»t. Already it is apparent that ths spoil from the tunnel will go far towards making a fairly large playground for' Young Wellington. The spoil co far taken from the hole in the In'll has quite tilled up a gully which previously lay between that portion of tho Town Belt at the top of Elizaboth and Pirie streets. A great quantity of clay and rock has beetLttppedC into the gully <and levelled of! ' roughly, and with tho "opening out" of the tunnel there will be much more spoil available for reclamation purposes. Th'o tramway' has only to ba extended a little further north, and there is another gully awaiting the filling-up process. Then "the City Engineer will perhaps paro the top off a little knob lying to the east of the two gullies — and thero will be an ideallysituated playground available for the many young people whose parents dwell upon tho eastern slopes of the city. A great result at littlo cost. Simultaneously vith the excavation which is going orf in the tunnel, a gang of men has effected a great difference in the appearance of Upper Pirie-street, when; the approach to the tuunei is being made for the tramway track. Hero a deep cutting has been niadi. through a grand seam of clay that was coveted by brickmakers. The busy coming and going of carts Laden with the,rich-colour-ed clay has made a miry mess of the bed of ths cutting, and long-buried drainpipes lie half-exposed in the face of the cliff like a much-knotted prehistoric monster of great, length. So far, a narrow path has been left, on each sids ol the cutting as approaches to the residences which thickly crowd upwards to the belt. But presently those paths a.re to be cut clean away, and the corporation -will then provide separate approaches to each residence from the new road level. It has been an awkward and extensive undertaking, carried on as unostentatiously as all of Mr. Morton's works are conducted ; and it does not\ seem likely that these Pine-street alterations will be completed any sooner than the tunnel — and that is reckoned to be 'about the end oi this year.