ON THE RAILWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 152, 30 June 1942, Page 3

ON THE RAILWAYS

SURVEY OF DAMAGE

Damage done to railway lines and | property by the earthquake was reviewed by the Minister of Railways (Mr. Semple) in a statement today. He said that immediately after the shock railway lines and structures in the southern part of the North Island were inspected, and within an hour reports were to hand from all gangers except those between Masterton and Woodville. where telephone communication failed. • On the Manawatu line, he said, banks subsided between Plimmerton and Pukerua Bay, between Paraparaumu and Waikanae, and north of Waikanae. Traffic was restored to Paekakariki from Wellington within seven hours and to Palmerston North within twelve hours. On the Wairarapa line small slips came down between Upper Hutt and Cross Creek and there were subsidences of track on some of the banks between Cross Creek and Masterton. The line from" Wellington to Masterton was reopened for' traffic within nine hours. The most serious damage to the railway occurred between Masterton and Eketahuna, where one bridge was damaged, most of the embankments at the bridge ends subsided, and two ! big slips came down on the line between Mangamahoe and Eketahuna. ASSISTANCE BY SOLDIERS. ! "I desire," said the Minister, "to express my thanks to the Army authorities for * the services of sixty soldiers who worked on the slips all day on Friday and did very good work enabling the railway i men to repair the track and bridges. By 5 o'clock on Friday night, the line was sufficiently repaired to enable trains to pass. Eailwaymen then took over from the soldiers the clearing of the remainder of the slips. Some of the men worked continuously for thirty hours, and the staff concerned deserve great credit for the manner in which they tackled the repair work and pushed it on to a speedy completion." Fortunately the railway telephone between Wellington and Masterton remained intact, and was placed at the service of the Prime Minister, the and Telegraph Department, and the Defence Department in connection with their earlier inquiries regarding conditions in the Wairarapa district. Many hundreds of chimneys in railway houses and buildings were brought down or damaged by the earthquake and bricklayers commenced the following morning.