PROGRESS OF THE MAIN TRUNK LINE.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 300, 25 June 1907, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE MAIN TRUNK LINE.

ENGINEERING DIFFICULTIES. HOW THEY AHE OVERCOME. (Post Reporter.) , Auckland, June 23. ! ''I will bet eny one a new hat that ' Taihape will be the terminus of the ; railway for the next five years." This confident prediction, made not more j than two years ago by a well-known ! business man of Taihape, whose wager no one was bold enough to take up, is illustrative of tho cynicism that prevailed at the time as to the progress oi' the great arterial rail- ■ road. There is r.o ground for cynic- j ism now. Instead of remaining in ' the Uangitikei ,the rails have eros- ' scd tho lofty Waimarino saddle into the valley of the Wangaehu, and after running rapidly over six or : seven- miles ot easy tusscck plain — ( probably the longest piece of straight ! on the line — have penetrated several : 1 milos into the Ohakune portion of the Waimarino forest to Rangatana, within three miles of Ohakune township. - ' j FURKERT'S WAY. "He tnkes risks, this Furkert, but he does move things along." This observation, dropped at the breaklast table at Taihape may be taken as epitomising the popular view, and it is possibly a just view. One cannot rush a work of this description without taking some risks, and the engineer who makes the maximum progrss with the niinimum of risk is the man for the situation. Unbiassed judges admit that Mr Furkert fills the bill. His work is not of the cheap vaiiety, but is marked with solidity as well as initiative. It may be said to represent the product 'of youth, boldness, and brains. In June, July, and August of last year, the* most strenuous efforts were made to lift the line out of the mud. The Mataroa bridge was not finished though tho rails were up to it. Between there and Waiouiu there were . five bridges and one tunnel to be completed. The Turangerere bridge is surely a record of rapid construction. The rails wore brought up to the site of a Thursday evening, • and on the following Wednesday , morning the train was taken across. I This meant the complete erection of I tilie superstructure, the pier work i being already done. The steel sui perstructure erected in this space of ! time is 220 ft long and 60ft above water-level. There are five spans, each 24ft long and each weighing 12^ ' tons. The work was done without a scaffolding, the heavy ironwork be- ; ing run out on a traveller, operat- ; ing on a wire rope. In the case of the tunnel, the heading had been run through, and within seven weeks ! it was enlarged, and the* lining was ; completrd. The length of this tunnel is live chains sixty links. . PUSHING THE RAILS THROUGH J The acceleration of railway co>n- : stniction in a country of bad wea- . ther and bad roads depends very largely on keeping the rails as close . as possfijJ.-». to the works in front so • that inmw;;jk and other material ) and stores may be promptly and iiij expensively delivered where requirj cd. In this respect the engineer : tame right up to the limits of the possible. Where a cutting stood in the way, he had a gullet, eight feet wide, pushed through, so that the engine might pass, where a hole ' was in front he contented himself with filling up the embankment to th;> snmo width, and again the iron lr;rse ploughed through. Subsidence of the filled ground did not dismay the engineer: he had it made up j again, ?>rd the work still went on. • K»nu> pl*res where he instructed j that the rails be laid amazed the p'at'.'hi.vers, and last winter the rails lepeatedly sank out of sight in the soft mud. Standing on tho solid j ground in a cutting, a man watching; > 1!) • eogh'o on the made bank ahead of him would find it drop almost out of his line of vision. One time the engine would he striking with its front cow-catcher, another time the hack cow-catcher would be striking mother earth. A bent cow-catcher was the unmistakable brand of at least one Public Works engine that pioneered to Turangerere. The oi»ht-foet on tt ings iwve just a minimum of clearance, and it was impossible to put your head out to wave your hand to anybody, even if there j had been anybody to wave to. The : trSin that brought the girders to one ! l)i idjiie was derailed seven times on ; the journey, but the saving in time : and money over carting along the ' road was immense. At the same . period a five-horse team took throe ; or U.nr days to bring three-quarters of a ton to Turangerere. A DEVIATION. [ Pushing the work in this manner j out of Idle Rangitikei valley, the I engineer found some heavy cutting J and fillings in front of him on the I run down to the plains. For the i sjusi:' purpose of expedition and of i keeping the rails close to the work in front:, he constructed a loop line Ito avoid this heavy «vork. The loop liin> runs 2;J miles at a grade, which I is sometimes 1 in 22.6, before rejoin- ; ing the line proper/ and it has been ' the "ireans of allowing the rails to be puslud far ahead right across the ■ level straight run mentioned above 'and int:> tho Waimarino forest, [t , will p.-jssil>l - take another twelve months to «-o«ij»lete the great cuttings and filljngs on tho line which has been deviated from, and if the rails had been held back for that period,' completion by the end of ISJOB would have boon out of the question. The ior){> line was a h:.ld expedient j t > get away from this impasse, and jit has been entirely successful. It I has enabled the rails to advance 12---or 14 miles ahead of the uncoinjileted • ' work, and it has been the means of forwarding the huge ironwork for . the viaducts in the Waimarino. It has paid for itself handsomely, for j already it has carried 3000 tons of the department's own material, bridge gilders and such like, on which the saving in freight as compared with horse or bullock traction , must be at least £1 a ton. Nor is ( the loop line of mer£ temporary advantage, for it taps a valuable and . permanent ballast pit at Waitangi, which is now serving the works ahead, and will probably be used for , maintenance purposes for years to • com?. Prior to the opening of the j Waitangi pit, ballast had to be j drawn all the way from Ohingaiti, a , distance of 47 miles. 1 OHAKUNE. The entry into tho bush after eros- : sing the tussock stretch north of ' Waiouni marks a distinct stage. Here ' is the great reserve of timber that ' is to provide the first fruits of the J railway, after which the stability of ' the district will depend on grass as 1 the permanent crop. There are I rumours of great sawmills to be erected at Rangatana, and of more at Ohakune. The present township of Ohakune is three miles beyond Rangatana, :>nd is not on the railway line, and althoughsjqcal agitation has ' forced upon the Government another ! station not previously planned, to be called Ohakune, the present Ohakune will still be about two miles from its ' own station. Ohakune township, i Ohakuno station, and Rantatana ; therefore form a triangle, the latter ' two places being on the railway line. ( Some people say that Ohakune town J will ultimately take up its bed and ■ walk to Ohakune station. On the other hand, the town is now well es- ' tablished, has abundant faith in itself, and is building its houses and shops in a solid manner. Around it for miles there is an abundance of . excellent bush, principally rimu and matai, with a sprinkling of totara. j On the occasion of the writer's visit a ; specially trucked consignment of \ plateglass was in the station yard. In i . the evening a ball was held, at which • quite 25 couples were present — possibly in honour of the plateglass. BUILDING IN DEAD CRATERS. Northwards from Ohakune* Station ' the line runs into a most interesting geological feature — a series of old forest clad craters, some of # them . being still perfect cups, while in one case a side has been broken away. , One crater contains a pool; another has a swampy bottom and a third, of greater depth, is notable for the j fact that it is always dry. The explanation of this idiosyncracy is not ( forthcoming. Into and around the inside of one orator the railway for- I mation carves its way, the sides of I the cutting gleaming red with scoria <

like the quarries in the volcanic cones of Auckland. A (J5,000 yard filling, to be completed in ten months, is the largest j outstanding work until the. route [ reaches Hapuawhenua, the big via- j duct concerning which most anxiety | is felt and which was described ; n last issue. Owing to the tapping of the scoria deposit, a substitute .is here found for the Waitangi gravel scoria transported over the advance tramway line. Scoria will be the base of the concrete used for the pier foundations now just starting; also for the 10i chain tunnel just nor'jli of Hapuawhenua. The enlargem it of the tunnel is well advanced and the lining should proceed quickly when the tramway is running. TOANUI VIADUCT. Two miles beyond Hapuawhenua and 45 miles from Taihape is the site of the Toanui viaduct — 462 ft long, and 115 ft high. Toanui, though farther from the southern base, is more advanced in construction than is Hapuawhenua. The reason is that there is a hole south of Toanui that will swallow at least. 45,000 yards, and a portion of this filling will have to be carried back from a cutting north of Toanui. The piers are in hand and one abutment has. been finished. The iron work is being railed ,to RangTtau and thence forward along the service road by five and six horse teams. The steel for the first span is already on the site and on Friday other nugc girders were in process of transportation. In the case of the larger viaduct at Hapuawhenua transport will, as stated, be effected by the more expeditious and cheaper tramway, and construction at Hapuawhenua should therefore be very rapid, but Toanui could not have been put in hand so soon as it has been without adopting the carting method along the service road. When a wagon laden with long girders starts out, a man with a jack goes alongside to help the load out when it gets jammed in the sharp curves of the mad. By some marvellous feat of driving the girders occasionally get through without calling on the jack at all. Five or six months should finish Toantii. LAVA AND TRACHYTE. The service road at this point was laid out before the present works came along and it has a defect in that it departs from the railway line and attains a much greater height. At the same time it serves a good quarry of lava rock which has been usod for concrete at Toanui. A 300 ft culvert a little south of Toanui is now, however, absorbing the output of the lava quarry. This culvert will take a thousand yards of concrete, and is being built on the step-down principle, at the rate fof one in four, so as to keep the velocity of the water within bounds. Trachyte occurs in great quantities north of Toanui, and this is now being utilised for the foundations and piers there. Passing the lesser viaduct at Hairemaria and the township of Horo pito, a run through easy country brings the traveller to the northern section and to the first of tho throe contract viaducts which will be described.