ANTIQUATED METHODS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 13 December 1927, Page 5

ANTIQUATED METHODS

- IN TUNNEL CONSTRUCTION. ADOPTED FOE TAWA FLAT. ENGLISH EXPERT’S CRITICISM. tUY TKI.EORAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 13. An English civil engineer at present visiting Wellington, who has had experience all over the world in tunnelling, strongly condemns the methods of the Public Works Department as antiquated and costly. The projected Tawa Flat tunnel, he says, is going to cost three times as much as it should, and quotes the Westfield tunnel on the Auckland deviation as a case in point that had taken two years to build, though only 29 chains in length, and, at the same rate, the Tawa Flat works would occupy. 17 years. He advises the Government to send some one abroad to learn how tunnels are now built. The antiquated methods at Westfield are being applied to Tawa Flat and engineers are going on lines long superseded, under which no sane contractor would take on the job. One engineer was copying another’s ideas regardless of whether they applied or not. Average tunnelling is nowadays 75ft per week, and even that is a moderate estimate, but at Tawa Flat it will only be 50ft per month. The whole system of tunnelling, the design and way the work is carried out, are ridiculous and absurd. This expert condemnation follows on grave doubts, raised by local engineers as to the propriety of the route selected. It is contended that a grade of 1 in 100 is preposterous, when a much flatter grade could easily be secured, the official reply to which was regarded as far from satisfactory. Now the Department has to face a still graver charge.