RAPID PROGRESS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 7, 7 December 1936, Page 5

RAPID PROGRESS.

EAST COAST RAILWAY. AVAIROA, Dec. 3. Every week sees great strides with the progress of the various works on the East Coast railway, but the greatest amount of interest at the present time is being focused on the construction of the Moll aka viaduct, for when this is completed it is intended to run a regular service as far as AVairoa. This is the only job left to bo finished to complete the line between Napier and Wairoa, and such good progress has been made with this colossal task —the viaduct is the biggest of its kind in the southern hemisphere—that it is Lilly expected the work will have been completed in about eight months. On both sides of the Mohaka Gorge the skeleton framework of the structure is rising rapidly and the viaduct as it stands at present provides an inspiring spectacle. This huge network of steel is clamped together by 21,000 rivets, and when the giant bridge lias been completed 1700 tons of steel will have been used in its construction. The people of AVairoa are anxiously awaiting the day when the viaduct is finished, for it will mean for them an end of their present isolation. Hundreds of acres of land will be- opened up for settlement, while another important factor is that it will lie possible to get the products of this rich farming area away with much greater dispatch, and, it is hoped, at much lower cost.