SOUTH MAIN TRUNK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 40, 16 August 1937, Page 10

SOUTH MAIN TRUNK

BIG LOAD OF RAILS

GOOD PROGRESS EXPECTED

i (By Telegraph.)

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

BLENHEIM, August 14.

■ The first consignment of rails for the northern sections of the South Island Main Trunk railway arrived at Picton on Wednesday by the Northumberland, and on Thursday the first of a series of loads was taken by special train from Picton to Wharanui. The consignment comprises about 2000 rails, each weighing about half a ton. They will be used in laying the permanent way from Wharanui southward, probably as far as Clarence. About 240 tons were taken to Wharanui on Thursday and another load, about 220 tons on Friday. The rest of the rails will be kept at Picton and distributed as required. The Northumberland's visit to Picton is the last- of her series of calls, for she already unloaded at Auckland, Wellington, Port Chalmers, and Lyttelton. At Lyttelton she landed about 2000 tons of 'rails for use on the southern section of the permanent way, between Parnassus and the Conway Riverr It is an indication of the difficulty in obtaining steel supplies that the order for the rails just delivered has been placed for more than a year. The rails will allow of further speeding up of the work on the northern section, which has already advanced to the stage where little beyond the laying of the rails is required for some distance south of Wharanui. Excellent progress has been made with the work on the Clarence Bridge, where the sinking of cylinders is in progress.